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http://www.archive.org/details/philosophyofhumeOOhume 



Series of fl&ooern pbilosopbers 

Edited by E. Hershey Sneath, Ph.D. 



Philosophy of Hume 



AS CONTAINED IN EXTRACTS FROM THE FIRST BOOK 

AND THE FIRST AND SECOND SECTIONS OF THE 

THIRD PART OF THE SECOND BOOK 



TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE 



SELECTED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, 



HERBERT AUSTIN AIKINS, Ph.D. 

Professor of Philosophy in Trinity College, N. C, 

and 

Honorary Fellow of Clark University 





LiH 



*«y 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1893 







Copyright, 1893 

BY 

HENRY HOLT & CO. 



ROBERT DRUMMOND, ELECTROTYPER AND PRINTER, NEW YOKK. 



PREFACE. 



It is unfortunate that most students of philosophy, 
both in Germany and in Great Britain and America, 
should gain their knowledge of Hume's philosophy 
from the Enquiry Concerning Human Understand- 
ing ; for in this work Hume sacrificed the thorough- 
going philosophical scepticism of the Treatise of 
Human Nature in order to carry out a system of 
religious scepticism which finds its culmination and 
best expression in the sections on " Miracles " and a 
" Particular Providence and a Future State." When 
these sections are quietly omitted the Enquiry rep- 
resents neither Hume's philosophy nor his theology ; 
and yet the length and difficulty of the Treatise have 
made it necessary for college and university instruc- 
tors to put editions of the Enquiry thus mutilated into 
the hands of their students. To remedy this diffi- 
culty I have taken the following selections from the 
first book of the Treatise, in the hope that the main 
doctrines of this great work will be no less intelligible 
when much confusing detail is omitted. 

Selections from the sections of Book II. on Liberty 
and Necessity have been incorporated with the ex- 
tracts from Book I. because Hume's doctrine of the 
will is merely a special application of his doctrine of 
causation and cannot be understood apart from it. 

H. A. A. 

iii 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Bibliography i 

Biographical Sketch 13 

Sources of Hume's Sceptical Philosophy .... 21 

Brief Exposition of Hume's Philosophy 25 

The System in Outline 25 

Causation , 36 

The Conception of Reality 42 

The Belief in Reality 45 

Confidence in Reason 46 

Inference 47 

The Treatise and the Enquiry 49 

Hume's Influence upon Subsequent Thought ... 55 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. 

Introduction 59 

Part I. — Of Ideas 61 

Part II. — Of the Ideas of Space and Time and 

Existence 78 

Part III. — Of Knowledge and Probability .... 86 

Part IV. — Of the Sceptical Philosophy 143 

Index , 175 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



HUME'S WRITINGS. 

THE EARLIER EDITIONS. 

Authorities : Edition of 1S54 ; Mr. Grose in edition of 1886 ; 
Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought, vol. i.,chapvi ; ; 
Ueberweg, § 119; Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual; Brunet's 
Manuel du Libraire. 

Treatise of Human Nature. Vols. I. and II., 
London, 1739; Vol. III., 1740. Two vols., 8vo., Lon- 
don, 181 7. German translation by Jacob, Halle, 
1 790-1. French translation of Book I. by Renouvier 
and Pillon, Paris, 1878. 

Essays, Moral and Political. One Volume, Edinb., 
1 741 ; Second Edition, corrected, 1742 ; A Second 
Volume, 1742; (Lowndes identifies this with the Phil. 
Essays.) Third Edition, corrected, with additions, 
London and Edinb., 1748. 

Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understand- 
ing. London, 1748 ; Second Edition, with additions 
and corrections, London, 1751. (Dr. Campbell speaks 
of an edition "printed at London, in duodecimo, 
1750.") German translation by Sulzer, Hamburg and 
Leipzig, 1775; by Tennemann, Jena, 1793; by Kirch- 
mann, Berlin, 1869. (Fourth edition in 1888.) 
French translation by Merian (published with Re- 
nouvier and Pillon's translation of Book I. of the 
Treatise under the title " Psychologie de Hume," 
with an introduction by F. Pillon), Paris, 1878, 8vo, 
581 pages. 



2 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. 
London, 1751. German translation by Masaryk., 
Vienna, 1883. 

Political Discourses. Edinb., 1752. (To this edition 
there is sometimes added "A List of Scotticisms.") 
Reprinted in the same year. Italian translation, 
Venezia, 1774; French translation, Amsterd., 1754, 
1 761, Paris, 1847. 

Essays and Treatises on several Subjects. London and 
Edinb., 1753-4. Four vols., fourth volume contain- 
ing the Political Discourses, with additions and cor- 
rections. New editions in 1756 (Lowndes), 1758, 
1760, 1764, 1768, 1770, 1777, 1784, and frequently 
afterwards. German translation of ' The Four Phi- 
losophers,' Glogau, 1768. 

History of England. Vol. I., 1754; Vol. II., 1756; 
Vol. III., 1760; Vol. IV., 1762. 

Four Dissertations : The Natural History of Re- 
ligion, Of the Passions, Of Tragedy, Of the Standard 
of Taste, London, 1757. 

Les ceuvres philosophique de Hume. Traduites en 
franc, (par J. -Bern, de Merian et Robinet), Amst., 
1759-64, 5 vol. in-12, ou Londres (Paris), 1788, 7 
vol. in-12. [This is from Brunet. Lowndes says 
1783, instead of 1788.] 

Expose' succinct de la Contest ion .... entre M. Hume et 
M. Rousseau. London, 1766. English translation 
soon afterwards. German translation, Leipzig, 1797- 
Two Essays (on Suicide and the Inwwrtality of the 
Soul, originally prepared for the volume of Disserta- 
tions but suppressed). London, 1767, anonymously. 
Essays on Suicide and the Inwwrtality of the Soul, 
ascribed to the late David Hume. London, 1783, 1789; 
Basel, 1799 (in English). German translation, Han- 
nover, 1781. 

The Life of David Hume, Esq., Written by Himself. 
Written in 1776, and published by Adam Smith in 
1777 together with his own letter to Wm. Strahan ; 
also in edition of Essays, 1777. French translation, 
Leipzig, 1777; Latin translation, 1787. The Auto- 
biography is found in most editions of the History 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 3 

and of the Philosophical Works. It can also be had 
separately. 

Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. London, 
1779. (Published by his nephew ; written in 1751.) 
German translation by Schreiter, Leipzig, 1781. 

Philosophical Essays on Morals, Literature, and Poli- 
tics; by David Hume. To which is added, the Answer 
to his Objections to Christianity, by Dr. Campbell. 
Also, an Account of Mr. Hume's Life, an Original 
Essay, and a few notes; by Thomas Ewell, M.D., of 
Virginia. In two volumes. First American edition. 
Philadelphia : published for the editor by Edward 
Earle, 1817. 8vo. 561 -+- 616 pp. Dedication to 
President Monroe. 

The Philosophical Works of David Hume. Four 
volumes, octavo. Edinburgh and London, 1826. 
" The philosophical writings of Mr. Hume are here 
for the first time collected in a uniform edition." 
Other editions, Edinburgh. 1836 ; Edinburgh and 
Boston, 1854 ; London, 1856. 

The editions of 1826 and 1854, now out of print, 
contain Hume's portrait, his autobiography, his will, 
his account of his controversy with Rousseau, and a 
list of the editions. 

The best edition of Hume's Philosophical works 
now in print is that in four octavo volumes edited by 
T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, Longmans, 1874 and 
1886. Two volumes, which can be had separately, 
contain the ' Treatise of Human Nature,' the ' Dia- 
logues concerning Natural Religion,' and two critical 
' Introductions ' to the ' Treatise ' by Professor Green, 
which cover in all 370 pp., and which are generally 
admitted to be by far the best criticisms of Hume in 
English. The two volumes of ' Essays, Moral, Politi- 
cal, and Literary,' contain all the rest of Hume's philo- 
sophical works. The first of these volumes also con- 
tains Hume's Autobiography as well as an elaborate 
' History of the Editions ' and a ' List of Editions' by 
Mr. Grose. A cheaper edition of the ' Treatise ' is that 
published in one volume at the Clarendon Press in 



4 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

1888, with a carefully-prepared index of nearly seventy 
pages by Mr. L. A. Selby-Bigge. The edition of Hume's 
' Essays ' published by Ward, Lock & Co. is not com- 
plete, but is cheap and good enough for most pur- 
poses. In this edition the sections of the ' Enquiry ' 
on ' Miracles ' and a ' Particular Providence and a 
Future State ' are placed at the back of the volume. 



ON THE LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. 

The literature is very abundant. For English 
readers the following are perhaps the best and most 
accessible. 

On his Life : — Hume's Autobiography, with Adam 
Smith's letters to Strahan; John H. Burton's ' Life 
and Correspondence of David Hume,' Edinb., 1846, 2 
vols., 8vo, containing portrait and fac-similes. New 
edition, 1850. 

On his Life and Philosophy : — Prof. Knight's 
' Hume,' Edinb. and Phila., 1886, sm. 8vo, x -f- 239 pp., 
portrait; Prof. Huxley's 'Hume,' Lon., 1879, 1887; 
N. Y., 1879, i2mo, vi -j- 206 pp.; French translation, 
1880. 

On his Philosophy : — Prof. Green's Introduction to 
his edition of the ' Treatise ' ; Leslie Stephen's ■ His- 
tory of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century,' 
Lon. and N. Y., 1876, vol. 1., chaps, i. and vi. 
Cardinal Newman's 'Grammar of Assent,' N. Y., 1870, 
479 pp., is an excellent work to read in connection 
with Hume's doctrine of belief, since from almost ex- 
actly the same premises it arrives at diametrically op- 
posite conclusions. 

It is impossible to give a complete list of what has 
been written about Hume ; for all the histories of 
philosophy, the philosophical journals, and the great 
writers, from Reid, Kant, and Jacobi to Lotze and 
Spencer, have something to say about him. The fol- 
lowing bibliography, however, may be useful. 

4 The History of the Works of the Learned' for 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 5 

Nov. 1739 contains a review of the Treatise which 
greatly annoyed Hume. 

Adams, Wm. An Essay on Mr. Hume's Essay on 
Miracles. London, 1752. 8vo, 134 pages. Second edi- 
tion, London, 1754, 8vo. 

Leland, John. A View of the Principal Deistical 
Writers of the Last and Present Century. Lon., 1755. 
8vo, 2 vols. Vol. II., pp. 1-135: Mr. Hume. 

Campbell, George. A Dissertation on Miracles. 
With a Correspondence by Hume, Campbell, and 
Blair. Edinb., 1797. 2 vols., 8vo. Same, 1823, viii 
+ 560 pp. Campbell's Dissertation is also found in 
the first Am. Ed. of Hume's Essays, 181 7. This crit- 
icism of Hume was first published in 1761. Hume 
considered its author the ablest as well as the most 
courteous of all his critics. 

Re id, Thos. 'Inquiry,' 1764 (Index in Sneath's 
edition, 1892); Essays on the Intellectual Powers of 
Man, 1785. 

'The London Review' for 1776 contains an article 
on Hume written immediately after his death and fre- 
quently referred to. 

[Home, Bishop George.] A Letter to A. Smith on 
the Life, Death, and Philosophy of his friend D. Hume. 
By one of the people called Christians. London, 1777, 
1799. The same in his works, 1818, 8vo, Vol. IV., 
pages 331-348. 

[Pratt, S. /.] An Apology for the Life and Writ- 
ings of David Hume. With a Parallel between him 
and the late Lord Chesterfield : to which is added an 
Address to One of the People called Christians. By 
way of Reply to his Letter to A. Smith. London, 
1777. i6mo. xv + 167 pp. 

Kant, Im. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781, 1787; 
Prolegomena, 1783, — especially pp. 3-10, 20-23, I2 3 °f 
the Mahaffy translation, Lon., 1889. 

The Beauties of Hume and Bolingbroke. Second 
edition. London, Kearsly, 1782. i2mo, xxxii -f- 
262 pp. 

Jacobi, F. H. David Hume ueber den Glauben, 
oder Idealismus und Realismus. Breslau, 1787. 



6 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Boswell, James. Life of Johnson, 1791. N. Y. 
ed., 1884, 4 vols. I. 355, 369, 375, 406, 439; II. 183; 
in. 192, 335. 

Me'rian, J. B. Sur le phenomenalisme de Hume. 
21 pp. Berlin. Academie royale des sciences. Nou- 
veaux Memoires. 1792-93. p. 417. 

Walpole, Horace. Works. Lon., 1798. 4to. Vol. 
IV., pp. 247-269: an account of the controversy be- 
tween Hume and Rousseau, and correspondence be- 
tween Hume and Walpole regarding it. See also 
' Walpoliana,' Lon., 1799. Two small volumes. 

Smellie, Wm. Literary and Characteristical Lives. 
Edinb., 1800. Pages 149-209. Contains some ex- 
tremely interesting personal reminiscences. 

Kirwin, R. Remarks on some sceptical positions 
in Hume's Enquiry concerning the Human Under- 
standing. Royal Irish Acad. Trans. Vol. VIII., 
1802, pp. 157-203. _ 

Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Hon. Henry 
Home of Karnes. 1807. 2 vols., 4to. Contains "a 
very long account of the publication and reception 
of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature." 

Ritchie, Thomas Edward. Account of the Life and 
Writings of David Hume, Esq. London, 1807. 8vo, 
vii + 52opp. Contains also eight of Hume's 'Es- 
says not inserted in his miscellaneous works,' and the 
Expose succinct. 

Foster, John. Critical Essays. Bonn's Library, 
1856, pages 95-110. A review of Ritchie's biography 
of Hume. Reprinted from 'The Eclectic Review,' Jan. 
1808. 

Vince, Samuel. The Credibility of the Scripture 
Miracles vindicated in Answer to Mr. Hume. Cam- 
bridge, 1809. 8vo, 78 pp. 

Hardy, Francis. Life of the Earl of Charlemont. 
Lon., 1810, 4to. Most of the stories about Hume are 
taken from this book. Several pages are quoted in the 
preface to the first Am. edition of Hume's ' Essays.' 

Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. III., 1818, pp. 653— 
657: David Hume charged by Mr. Coleridge with 
plagiarism from St. Thomas Aquinas. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 7 

Private Correspondence of David Hume with sev- 
eral Distinguished Persons between the years 1761 and 
1776, now first published from the originals. London, 
1820. 4to. xix + 285 pp. 

Stewart, Dugald. Dissertation on the Progress of 
Philosophy. Part II. 1821. In Vol. VI. of his Works, 
1829. Also in Encyc. Brit., 8th ed., Vol. I., pp. 206- 
218. See also pp. 268-274 for account of Hume's 
Ethics by Mackintosh. 

Mason, J. M. Writings. 1832. Vol. III. Contrast 
between the death of Hume and Finley. 

De Quincey, Thos. On Hume's Argument against 
Miracles. 'Blackwood' for July, 1839, pp. 91-99. 
Reprinted with other writings, Boston, 1854 and 
1858 ; Edinb., 1890. 

Erdmann, J. E. Versuch einer wiss. Gesch. der 
neuern Philosophic Leipzig, 1840. Vol. II., Part I., 
pp. 162-192: Leben und Philosophic des Hume. 

Lechler, G. V. Geschichte des englischen Deis- 
mus. Stuttgart und Tubingen, 1841. 8vo. Pages 
425-436: Die Skepsis Hume's. 

Murray, Thos. (Editor). Letters of David Hume 
and extracts from letters referring to him. Edinb., 1841. 
8vo, 80 pp. Also Lon., 1842. 

New Englander, Vol. I., 1843, pp. 169-183: Hume, 
Voltaire, and Rousseau. " A concise, impartial, and 
authentic account of their lives and their assaults 
upon Christianity." 

Schlosser, F. C. Geschichte des i8ten und i9ten 
Jahrhunderts. Heidelberg, 1843-49. 7 vols., 8vo. 
English translation, Lon., 1843-44. Vols. L, II. 

Quarterly Rev., Vol. LXX1IL, 1844, pp. 536-593: 
Hume and his influence upon history. Contains 
some interesting stories of Hume. 

Brougham, Lord Henry. Lives of Men of Letters 
and Science. 1845. 8vo. Chapter on Hume, pages 126- 
166. The same in his ' Lives of Men of Letters of the 
Time of George III.' London and Glasgow, 1885, 8vo, 
pages 168-230. Largely biographical and sometimes 
interesting. 

North Brit. Rev., Vol. VII., 1847, pp. 539-560 : 



8 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Life and correspondence of Hume. A review of 
Burton's book. 

Burton, J. H. (Editor). Letters of Eminent Per- 
sons addressed to David Hume. Edinb. and Lon., 
1849. 8vo, xxxi + 334 PP- "These letters, though 
interesting in themselves, are not illustrative of the 
life and character of Hume." 

Rogers, Henry. David Hume. Encyc. Brit., 8th 
edition, 1852. Reprinted in 'New Biographies of Il- 
lustrious Men,' Boston, 1857, pages 379-408. Very 
largely biographical. 

Walker, J. Hume's Philosophical Writings. Chris- 
tian Examiner, Nov., 1854, pp. 421-439. An excel- 
lent article. 

Edgar, John G. Footprints of Famous Men. N. Y., 
1854. Small 8vo. Pages 180-199: David Hume. 
Gives some account of Hume's ancestry. 

Villemain, A. F. CEuvres. Nouv. ed., Paris, 
1854-5. 10 vols., 8vo. Vol. VI. 

Cucheval-Clarigny, Narcisse. David Hume, sa vie 
et ses ecrits, d'apres sa correspondance publie a Edim- 
bourg. Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 nov. 1856, Vol. 
VI., pp. 107-141. 

Fischer, Kuno. Bacon und Nachfolger. Eng. 
trans., Lon., 1857. Pages 468-496. 

Feuerlein. Hume's Leben und Wirken. Der Ge- 
danke, Vols. IV. and V. Berlin, 1863-64. 

Jlfasson, David. Recent British Philosophy. Lon. 
and Camb., 1865. Small 8vo. viii -j- 414 pp. Gives 
some account of Hume's influence, but does not say 
much about it. 

Papillon, F. David Hume, precurseur d'Auguste 
Comte. Versailles, 1868. 

Oliphant, Mrs. M. O. Historical Sketches of the 
Reign of George II. Edinb., 1869. Chapter on 
Hume reprinted from 'Blackwood,' Vol. CV., 1869. 
Also in ' Littell's Living Age,' Boston, 1869, 8vo, pp. 
202-221. Interesting. 

Baumann, J. J. Die Lehren von Raum, Zeit und 
Mathematik in der neueren Philosophic Berlin, 1869. 
2 vols., 8vo. Vol. II., pages 481-671. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 9 

Hunt, John. David Hume. Contemp. Rev., Vol. 
XL, 1869, pp. 79-100. Contains some stories of 
Hume and historical matter concerning Hume's re- 
ligious writings. 

Schultze, W. F. Hume und Kant uber den Causal- 
begriff. Rostock, 1870. 8vo, 39 pp. 

Jodl, Friedrich. Leben und Philosophic David 
Hume's. Halle, 1872. 8vo, 202 pp. Only 17 pages 
devoted to his life. 

Southern Review, Vol. XL, 1872, pp. 92-120, 309- 
336: Hume's Philosophy. "The analogy between 
Hume and Kant is as marked in their deviation from 
their own principles as in the resemblance of the 
principles themselves." "The reign of Hume will at 
length be ended, and we may hope that the sover- 
eignty of Providence will be acknowledged in its 
stead." 

Compayre, Gabriel. La philosophic de David Hume. 
Paris, 1873. 8vo, 514 pp. 

Thornton, W. T. Old-fashioned Ethics and Com- 
mon-sense Metaphysics. London, 1873. 8vo, vii -f- 
298 pp. Pages 1 13-157 : David Hume as a metaphy- 
sician. 

Pfleiderer, Edmund. Empirismus und Skepsis in 
David Hume's Philosophic als abschliessender Zer- 
setzung der englischen Erkenntnisslehre, Moral und 
Religionswissenschaft. Berlin, 1874. 8vo, 540 pp. 
"Containing good matter, but too much spun out." 

Sinclair, John. Sketches of Old Times and Distant 
Places. London, 1875. 8vo, viii + 296 pp. Pages 
165-196. 

Spicker, Gideon. Kant, Hume, und Berkeley. Eine 
Kritik der Erkenntnisstheorie. Berlin, 1875. 8vo. 

Wirth, J. U. Pfleiderer: Empirismus und Skepsis 
in D. Hume's Philosophic 8 pp. Zeits. f. Philos., 
Vol. LXVL, 1875, p. 102. 

Watson, J. Kant's reply to Hume. Jour. Spec. 
Phil., Vol. X., 1876, pp. 1 13-134. 

Riehl, A. Der philosophische Kriticismus. Vol. 
I., Leipzig, 1876. 8vo. Pages 63-161: Hume's skep- 
tischer Kriticismus. 



IO BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Meinong, Alexius. Hume-Studien. I. Zur Ge- 
schichte und Kritik des modernen Nominalismus. 
Wien, 1877. 8vo, 78 pp. From " Sitzungsber. d. k. 
Akad. d. Wiss." " A very careful study of Hume's 
nominalism." 

Gizycki, G. v. Die Ethik David Hume's in ihrer 
geschichtlichen Stellung. Breslau, 1878. 8vo, xvri 
H~ 357 PP- " 1 ne most thorough exposition of Hume's 
utilitarianism." 

Ritter, Christian. Kant und Hume. Halle, 1878. 
8vo, 55 pp. 

Thompson, J. P. Final Cause : a Critique of the 
Failure of Paley and the Fallacy of Hume. With an 
appendix on Huxley's Hume. London, 1879. &vo, 
ii + 22 pages. Also in his 'American Comments on 
European Questions,' Boston, 1884, pp. 300-330. 

Compayre, G. Du pretendu scepticisme de Hume. 
Revue Philos., Tome VIII. , 1879, pp. 449-468. 

Morris, George S. British Thought and Thinkers. 
Chicago, 1880. 8vo. Pages 234-264. 

Pfleiderer, E. Meinong's Hume-Studien. Zeits. 
f. Philos., Vol. LXXVII, 1880, pp. 248-263. 

Quarterly Rev., Vol. CIL , 1880, pp. 287-330. 

Runze, Max. Kant's Kritik an Hume's Skepti- 
cismus: Greifswalder Inaugural-Dissertation, t88o. 

The Hundred Greatest Men. London, 1880. Folio. 
Contains portrait and brief biographical sketch. 

Koenig, Edmund. Ueber den Substanzbegriff bei 
Locke und Hume. Leipzig, 1881. 8vo, 75 pp. 

Adamson, Robert. Hume. Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., 
1881, pp. 346-355. 

Espinas, A. La philosophic en Ecosse au XVIIP 
siecle et les origines de la philosophic anglaise con- 
temporaine. Revue Phil., Tome XL, 1881, pp. 113- 
132; XIL, 119-150. 

Correspondance litteraire, philosophique et critique 
par Grimm, Diderot, Raynal, Meister, etc. Paris, 1882. 
16 vols., 8vo. Index in Vol. XVI. 

Sayous, Edouard. Les Deistes anglais et le Chris- 
tianisme. Paris, 1882. 8vo., 211 pp. Chap. VIII.: 
La decadence du deisme. ' The death-warrant of the 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. II 

rationalistic school was signed by Hume as well as by 
Wesley.' 

Howison, Geo. H. Hume and Kant. Outline of 
four lectures delivered at Concord School of Philoso- 
phy, July, 1883. [Concord, 1883.] i6mo, 7 pp. 
Same in German, San Francisco, 1884, 8vo, 7 pp. 

McCosh, James. Agnosticism of Hume and Hux- 
ley, with a notice of the Scottish School. New York, 
1884. 8vo, 10 + 70 pp. (Philosophical Series, VI.) 

Stirling, J. H. Kant has not answered Hume. 
Mind, Vol. IX., 1884, pp. 531-547; Vol. X., pp. 45- 
72. See also The Secret of Hegel, Lon., 1865, In- 
troduction: " Hume is our Politics, Hume is our 
Trade, Hume is our Philosophy, Hume is our Re- 
ligion." 

Gordy, John P. Hume as Sceptic. Leipzig, 1885. 
8vo, 69 pp. 

Webb, T. E. Veil of Isis. Dublin and London, 
T885. 8vo, xiii + 365 pp. Pages 67-124: Problem- 
atical Idealism or Hume. 

Seth, Andrew. Scottish Philosophy : a comparison 
of the Scottish and German answers to Hume. 
Edinb., 1885. 8vo, xii -f- 218 pp. 

Stuckenberg, J. If. W. Grundprobleme in Hume. 
Vortrag [gehalten in der philosophischen Gesellschaft 
zu Berlin am 28 Februar, 1885] nebst der dabei statt- 
gehabten Diskussion. Halle a S., 1887. 8vo., 35 pp. 

Tarantino, G. (Docent in the University of Naples). 
Saggio sul criticismo e sull' associazionismo di Davide 
Hume. Napoli, 1887. 8vo, 75 pp. 

Carrau, Ludovic. Philosophie religieuse en An- 
gleterre depuis Locke jusqu'a nos jours. Paris* 1888. 
8vo, 295 pp. Pages 92-157. 

G. B. Hill (Editor). Letters of David Hume to 
William Strahan, now first edited. Oxford, 1888. 
8vo, xlvi + 386 pp. Fac-simile. 

Case, Thomas. Physical Realism. London, 1888. 
8vo, 387 pp. Pages 256-318. 

Koenig, Edmund. Die Entwickelung des Causalpro- 
blems vonCartesius bis Kant. Leipzig, 1888. Pages 
205-246. 



12 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Fraser, Alex. Visualization as a Chief Source of the 
Psychology of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. 
Am. Jour. Psych., Vol. IV., 1891-92, pp. 230-247. 

Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames. Horse Sabbaticae : 
reprint of articles contributed to the Saturday Review. 
Second Series. London and New York, 1892. Sra. 
8vo. Pages 367-385. 

Hyslop, Ja)nes H. Hume's Treatise of Morals and 
Selections from the Treatise of the Passions. Con- 
tains an introduction of 66 pages and a bibliography. 
Boston, 1893. i2mo, 275 pp. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



In his Autobiography, dated April 18, 1776, Hume 
says : 

"I was born the twenty-sixth of April 1711, old 
style, at Edinburgh. I was of a good family, both by 
father and mother. My family, however, was not 
rich ; and being myself a younger brother, my patri- 
mony, according to the mode of my country, was of 
course very slender. My father, who passed for a man 
of parts, died when I was an infant. I passed through 
the ordinary course of education with success, and was 
seized very early with a passion for literature, which 
had been the ruling passion of my life, and the great 
source of my enjoyments. My studious disposition, 
my sobriety, and my industry, gave my family a notion 
that the law was a proper profession for me ; but I 
found an unsurmountable aversion to everything but 
the pursuits of philosophy and general learning. 

" In 1734 I went to Bristol, with some recommenda- 
tions to eminent merchants ; but in a few months 
found that scene totally unsuitable to me. I went 
over to France with a view of prosecuting my studies 
in a country retreat. During my retreat in France, 
first at Rheims, but chiefly at La Fleche, in Anjou, I 
composed my ' Treatise of Human Nature.' In the 
end of 1738 I published my treatise. Never literary 

13 



14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of 
Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press, 
without reaching such distinction as even to excite a 
murmur among the zealots. But, being naturally of a 
cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered 
the blow, and prosecuted with great ardor my studies 
in the country. In 1742 I printed at Edinburgh the 
first part of my Essays ; the work was favorably re- 
ceived, and soon made me entirely forget my former 
disappointment." 

After an extremely unpleasant year spent as tutor 
and guardian of the weak-minded young Marquis of 
Annandale, Hume accepted in 1746 the invitation of 
General St. Clair to act as secretary to the expedition 
which afterwards attacked the French coast, and the 
following year he attended him in the same station in 
his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and 
Turin. "These two years were almost the only in- 
terruptions which my studies have received during 
the course of my life." 

" I had always entertained a notion that my want of 
success in publishing the Treatise of Human Nature 
had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, 
and that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, 
in going to the press too early. I therefore cast the 
first part of that work anew in the ' Enquiry concern- 
ing Human Understanding,' which was published 
while I was at Turin. But this piece was at first little 
more successful than the Treatise of Human Nature. 

" Such is the force of natural temper, that these dis- 
appointments made little or no impression on me. I 
Went down in 1749, and lived two years with my 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 15 

brother at his country house, for my mother was now 
dead. I there composed t lie second part of my essay, 
which I called ' Political Discourses,' and also my 
' Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,' which 
is another part of my treatise that I cast anew. 

"In 1 75 1 I removed from the country to the town. 
In 1752 the Faculty of Advocates chose me their 
librarian ; an office from which I received little or no 
emolument, but which gave me the command of a 
large library. I then formed the plan of writing the 
' History of England.' I was, I own, sanguine in my 
expectations of the success of this work. I thought 
that I was the only historian that had at once neglected 
present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of 
popular prejudices ; and, as the subject was suited to 
every capacity, I expected proportional applause. 
But miserable was my disappointment : I was assailed 
by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even de- 
testation : English, Scotch, and Irish, whig and tory, 
churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, 
patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man 
who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate 
of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford ; and, after the 
first ebullitions of their fury were over, what was still 
more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into ob- 
livion." 

Yet some time later " the copy-money given me by 
the booksellers much exceeded anything formerly 
known in England." 

In 1763 Hume accepted the Earl of Hertford's in- 
vitation to join the British embassy at Paris, and was 
shortly afterwards appointed secretary to the embassy. 



l6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

He was much pleased with his reception in the French 
capital ; but left in 1766 for Edinburgh, with the pur- 
pose " of burying himself in a philosophical retreat." 
After two years in London as under-secretary to 
General Conway, Hume returned to Edinburgh in 1769 
u very opulent (for I possessed a revenue of one thou- 
sand pounds a year), healthy, and, though somewhat 
stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long 
my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation. 

" In spring 1775 I was struck with a disorder in my 
bowels, which at first gave me no alarm, but has since, 
as I apprehend it, become mortal and incurable. I 
now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. 

" To conclude historically with my own character. 
I am, or rather was (for that is the style I must now 
use in speaking of myself, which emboldens me the 
more to speak my sentiments) ; I was, I say, a man of 
mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, 
social, and cheerful humor, capable of attachment, 
but little susceptible of enmity, and of great modera- 
tion in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, 
my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwith- 
standing my frequent disappointments. My company 
was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as 
well as to the studious and literary ; and, as I took a 
particular pleasure in the company of modest women, 
I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I 
met with from them. In a word, though most men, 
anywise eminent, have found reason to complain of 
calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked, by her 
baleful tooth ; and, though I wantonly exposed my- 
self to the rage of both civil and religious factions, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 17 

they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their 
wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindi- 
cate any one circumstance of my character and con- 
duct ; not but that the zealots, we may well suppose, 
would have been glad to invent and propagate any 
story to my disadvantage, but they could never find 
any which they thought would wear the face of proba- 
bility. I cannot say there is no vanity in making this 
funeral oration of myself ; but I hope it is not a mis- 
placed one ; and this is a matter of fact which is easily 
cleared and ascertained." 

Hume's conviction that he had not long to live 
turned out to be correct ; for on Sunday, Aug. 25, 
1776, "he died in such a happy composure of mind 
that nothing could exceed it." On Nov. 9 of the 
same year Adam Smith wrote to Wm. Strahan " some 
account of the behavior of our late excellent friend, 
Mr. Hume, during his last illness," and in concluding 
he said : " Upon the whole, I have always considered 
him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as ap- 
proaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and 
virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty 
will permit." 

That a professed sceptic should be described as 
wise and virtuous, and that he could die peacefully 
and cheerfully, seemed to most Christians of Hume's 
time scandalous and incredible. No sooner, there- 
fore, had Dr. Smith's account of Hume's happy end 
been published in 1777 than it became the subject of 
horrified comment and violent controversy. Bosvvell 
' mentioned to Dr. Johnson that David Hume's per- 
sisting in his infidelity when he was dying shocked 



15 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

him much,' and Dr. Johnson replied that "he had a 
vanity in being thought easy;" Bishop Home wrote 
his anonymous " Letter to A. Smith on the Life, 
Death, and Philosophy of his friend D. Hume," and 
Pratt replied to it; while John Wesley, in a sermon 
preached some time after Hume's death, alluded to 
his last days as described by Smith, and called upon 
the dead man to say whether he had not learned 
that 'it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the 
living God.' Nevertheless, Adam Smith's estimate of 
Hume's personal character is confirmed by the fact 
that Campbell and Blair, both clergymen, and both 
skilful opponents of his anti-theological arguments, 
were among his personal friends, and by the testimony 
of Francis Hardy, who says in his " Life of the Earl 
of Charlemont": " Of all the philosophers of his sect, 
none, I believe, ever joined more real benevolence 
than my friend Hume. His love to mankind was 
universal and vehement ; and there was no service he 
would not cheerfully have done to his fellow-crea- 
tures, excepting only that of suffering them to save 
their souls in their own way." 

Neither the Autobiography nor Adam Smith's letter 
contains any reference to the celebrated ' quarrel ' 
with Rousseau ; for Hume wished it forgotten, though 
it did him no discredit. The story can be briefly told. 
When the erratic and morbid author of the ' Emile ' 
was in trouble on the Continent, Hume invited him to 
England, found him a pleasant home, and got him the 
offer of a pension. But one day Rousseau received a 
letter inviting him to the court of King Frederick of 
Prussia and promising that if he would go there he 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. IQ 

would be given no opportunity to pose as a martyr. 
Rousseau became much excited, remembered that 
he had once heard Hume say in his sleep " I have 
Jean Jacques Rousseau," and publicly accused him, 
not only of writing the letter, but of bringing him to 
England to betray him to his enemies. Hume was 
persuaded to answer his accusations ; and thus the 
controversy began. As a matter of fact the offending 
letter was written by Horace Walpole, who despised 
Rousseau. Of Hume himself Walpole wrote : " I am 
no admirer of Hume. In conversation he was very 
thick ; and I do believe hardly understood a subject 
till he had written upon it." 

Hume is buried on the outskirts of Edinburgh, and 
his tombstone bears this inscription : 

David Hume 
Born 1711 Died 1776 

Leaving it to Posterity to add the Rest. 



SOURCES OF HUME'S SCEPTICAL 
PHILOSOPHY. 



The ' Treatise of Human Nature,' Hume's first 
and greatest work, is connected in the closest pos- 
sible way with the systems of Locke and Berkeley. 

(i) Locke, in trying to show that all knowledge 
depends upon experience, had thought it necessary 
to prove that all ideas, the elements of knowledge, 
are derived from experience. He succeeded in doing 
this to his own satisfaction, but only because he failed 
to distinguish between pure sensations and their 
revived images in memory and imagination on the one 
hand, and these sense-images together with the closely 
associated intellectual factors which enter into the 
simplest act of knowledge on the other. For example, 
he said that the idea of impenetrability is' derived 
from the sense of touch, and that if any one desires 
to ascertain the content of this idea he may "put a 
flint or a football between his hands and then en- 
deavor to join them, and he will know." Here 
Locke did not distinguish from the mere muscular 
and tactual sensations involved, the additional com- 
plex thought that in spite of the effort made it is im- 
possible to bring the hands together, because there 

21 



22 SOURCES OF HUMES SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 

is something between them that resists extinction. 
Yet it is clear that this thought is not a part of the 
sensations involved, and that without it we could have 
no idea of impenetrability. 

(2) Berkeley accepted Locke's conclusion that all 
the elements of knowledge are derived from sense- 
experience, but he saw as Locke did not that sensa- 
tions and their fainter reproductions consist simply of 
images presented to some sense or other — of visual, 
auditory, or tactual pictures, as it were. Berkeley 
therefore supposed that all thought consists of nothing 
but a series of simple or complex images. 

(3) But every image "is an image, not of a so-called 
general idea, but of some particular thing, more or 
less definitely conceived. We cannot, for example, 
picture a triangle which is not either equilateral, isos- 
celes, or scalene, nor imagine a taste which is neither 
sweet, sour, saline, or the like. There are, therefore, 
no abstract ideas, or ideas of things or qualities in 
general. 

(4) One idea especially, of which Locke spoke, 
Berkeley could not picture : that, namely, of an inert, 
senseless something called substance, which has all the 
qualities perceived by the senses but is not any of 
them. So he concluded that the only possible idea 
of substance is the complex of ideas of the individual 
qualities of a particular object as they present them- 
selves to the human mind through the organs of sense; 
and that, as the mind knows only these ideas, it is 
illogical, unnecessary, and even absurd to assert the 
existence of an absolutely unknown something called 
substance, or matter, to account for these sensations. 



SOURCES Of HUME S SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 2% 

These four conclusions reached by Locke and 
Berkeley — that all ideas are derived from experience, 
that experience is only of individual mental images, 
and that therefore there can be no abstract ideas, and 
no idea of a substance which underlies the perceptible 
qualities of things — these are the whole basis on which 
Hume's system rests. 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME'S 
PHILOSOPHY. 



THE SYSTEM IN OUTLINE. 

The First Part of the Treatise is concerned largely 
with the four principles just enunciated. The omis- 
sion of all reference to external reality from the defi- 
nition of Impressions and Ideas is in accordance with 
Berkeley's rejection of a material world ; and Sections 
VI. and VII. are devoted to a reaffirmation of Berke- 
ley's doctrines that there can be no idea of an under- 
lying substance, and no abstract idea of anything. 

In Part II. the principle that every idea is a definite 
mental image is applied to the conceptions of space, 
time, and existence. It is absurd to say that space is 
infinitely divisible ; for we can picture neither an in- 
finitesimal portion of space nor an infinite process of 
division. The ideas of empty space and empty time are 
equally impossible ; for experience always presents 
space as a relation between the parts of visual or tac- 
tual images, and time as a relation between successive 
impressions and ideas; and it is impossible to form an 
idea of the relation apart from that which is related. 
In like manner, since there is no impression of exist- 
ence or of external existence apart from that of the 

25 



26 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUMe's PHILOSOPHY* 

object or qualities existing, the idea of the one cannot 
be abstracted from that of the other. Indeed, if by- 
external existence is meant something specifically dif- 
ferent from impressions and ideas themselves, no 
real conception of it can be formed at all ; for all 
thought is confined to impressions and ideas, that is, 
to more or less vivid mental images. 

In Part III. two topics are treated together: infer- 
ence and the idea of causation. By separating them 
we can perhaps make Hume's conception of each a 
little clearer than is otherwise possible. 

First of all, inference. — Of Hume's seven Philosoph- 
ical Relations or categories, of resembla7ice, proportions 
in quantity and number, degrees of any quality, contra- 
riety, identity, situation in time or place, a?id causation, 
the first four — corresponding to Kant's mathematical 
relations — are concerned with mental images as mere 
images, and are always the same for the same images. 
They are therefore the objects of intuitive and de- 
monstrative knowledge. The three others, however, 
correspond to Kant's dynamical relations and are con- 
cerned with facts and events considered as really 
existing or happening, not merely with the inner rela- 
tions of any set of mental pictures. And as we can- 
not predict the order of nature by merely analyzing 
our conceptions, these relations are not the objects 
of either intuitive or demonstrative knowledge, i.e., of 
knowledge proper. Nevertheless, through one of 
them, namely, through the relation of causation, 
something can be inferred about events that are not 
directly perceived through any sense. And the ques- 
tion is : How is this possible ? 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUMe's PHILOSOPHY. 2? 

To infer is to pass in thought from some object or 
fact perceived or remembered to some other object 
or fact not experienced, and on the basis of the former 
to believe in the existence of the latter. 

It has been shown already that there is no idea of 
existence apart from the idea or image of the object 
existing. A little introspection will show just as 
clearly that the belief in an object's existence adds no 
new image to that of the object already formed. 
And certainly belief does not change the outline or 
color of that image ; for then the image would repre- 
sent, not the same, but some other object. The only 
possible difference, therefore, between the mental 
image of something believed and the image of the 
same thing not believed must be a difference of vivac- 
ity or intensity. And beyond the image with its out- 
line, color, and vivacity, thought there is none. Be- 
lief therefore consists merely in the vivacity of a 
mental image. 

There are three Natural Relations, or principles of 
association, between objects, which tend to convey 
the thought from the impression or idea of the one 
to the idea of the other. And, moreover, when the 
thought is conveyed by any of these principles from 
an impression of sense or a vivid image in the mem- 
ory to an idea, the preceding vivid image of sense or 
memory imparts some of its vivacity to the suggested 
idea ; so that this idea is much more vividly pictured 
than if it had been called up by some idea of the im- 
agination only. 

These natural relations are Resemblance, Contiguity, 
and Causation. But Causation is much more effective 



28 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME'S PHILOSOPHY. 

than either of the others, and imparts a much greater 
degree of vivacity to the associated idea. 

This is because objects which we recognize as 
causes and effects are not only always successive and 
contiguous to each other in space and time, but they 
have been constantly conjoined in our experience, so 
that the association between them is very fixed and 
unerring. 

Indeed the association is so strong that all the vi- 
vacity of belief is conveyed to the suggested image. 
And thus it is that through causation an inference is 
drawn to something beyond present experience. 

Conclusions regarded as merely probable are reached 
either when one's experience of the cause and its ef- 
fect has been too limited to produce a well-established 
association between them, or when the same cause has 
been connected in one's experience with various ef- 
fects. In the latter case the impression of the cause 
tends to suggest the ideas of all the effects; but only 
one of the images can be present at a time; there is 
therefore a conflict between them; and when finally 
the strongest has crowded out the others, it has lost 
much of its vivacity; so the belief attached to it is but 
faint, and the conclusion is said to be only probable. 

Another kind of probability is attained by analogy. 
In this case the present impression is not a perfect re- 
production of the cause which has always been expe- 
rienced in connection with a certain effect, though it 
resembles it more or less; and the lack of a perfect 
resemblance diminishes the vivacity of the suggested 
image, as did the lack of a perfect experience in the 
other kind of merely probable inferences. 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 29 

As the strength of an association can vary indefi- 
nitely, and as there can also be any degree of resem- 
blance between the present impression and a cause 
given in past experience, it is evident that an inference 
from a present impression to its anticipated effect may 
involve any degree of belief, from the merest proba- 
bility to the fullest conviction. But in every case the 
inference is a matter of imagination, and not of rea- 
soning. For, did the inference from past to future 
depend upon reasoning, the uniformity of nature 
would have to be the major premise. And what rea- 
soning could ever prove this premise? It cannot be 
demonstrated, for there is no contradiction in suppos- 
ing the course of nature to change; and in every at- 
tempt to prove it by induction it is merely assumed. 

Since the causal relation is so important for infer- 
ence as to matters of fact, its nature should be deter- 
mined a little more accurately. Causes and effects 
are not only successive and contiguous and constantly 
conjoined in our experience, but we suppose a certain 
necessary connection to exist between them; and the 
idea of this necessary connection is much more ob- 
scure than that of succession, of contiguity, or of con- 
stant conjunction. To clear it up it is necessary to 
find the impression from which it is derived; for, 
since there are no innate ideas, there must be such an 
impression, and impressions are intenser than their 
ideas, and their outlines are therefore clearer. 

Though contiguity and succession between external 
objects can be perceived, none of the senses present 
any image of their connection. The impression is 
therefore not gained from a contemplation of nature, 



30 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME's PHILOSOPHY. 

as Locke said in his chapter on Power. Much less can 
it be derived from the ' substantial forms ' or other 
unintelligible properties of matter, or even from the 
Divine activity; for none of these are objects of per- 
ception, and none of them therefore can afford an im- 
pression. 

Nor can it be gained from the known influence of 
volition upon the organs of the body; for we are no- 
where directly conscious of this influence, as is proved 
by the fact that it is generally supposed to be direct, 
while in reality it is exerted only through the nerves 
and muscles. Nor, again, is the idea of necessary 
connection obtained by observing the control of the 
will over the course of one's own ideas; for the greatest 
voluntary effort is often accompanied with the least 
control. 

Finally, it is of no avail to say that the idea is ab- 
stract; for abstract ideas are but particular aspects of 
ordinary ideas, and must therefore have been pre- 
ceded by impressions like the rest. 

The impression is obtained, however, from the mu- 
tual relations of associated ideas when one suggests 
another; for, like the relations of resemblance, pro- 
portion, degree, and contrariety, the connection be- 
tween ideas becomes present to consciousness with 
the ideas themselves, and can be obtained by a simple 
inspection or 'comparison ' of them. 

The impression of necessary connection or power is 
therefore the impression of a certain relation between 
ideas, namely, of connected ideas suggesting each 
other. And the idea of necessary connection also 
must be the idea of such a relation between ideas; for 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUMES PHILOSOPHY. 3I 

the idea is a copy of the impression, and it is impossi- 
ble to abstract the idea of the relation from that of 
the ideas related. In other words, the idea of neces- 
sary connection is a pair of associated mental images 
considered in reference to their connection with each 
other. 

This being so, it is absurd to speak of a connection 
between external objects; and causation therefore 
consists of contiguity, succession, and constant con- 
junction in nature, together with a pair of connected 
ideas (and therefore the idea of connection) in the 
mind of the observer. So the causal relation is a 
mixed one, partly independent of mind and partly 
dependent upon it. 

The common belief that there is a necessity in 
things themselves is the result of the mind's anthropo- 
morphic tendency to ' spread itself ' over inanimate 
objects and attribute to them its own ideas and 
emotions. It is the same kind of confusion that leads 
us to attribute to and at the same time deny of change- 
less things the changes that really take place in our 
own thought, and so to say that these things endure. 

This doctrine of Causation can be applied as well 
to our fellow-men as to nature. The sequence and 
constant conjunction of motive and act is in them ; 
the idea of their connection, in us. 

It has thus been explained " why we conclude that 
such particular causes must necessarily have such par- 
ticular effects, and why we form an inference from 
one to the other." As for the other question (Sec- 
tions III. and IV.), " For what reason we pronounce 
it necessary that everything whose existence has a be- 



32 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 

ginning should also have a cause ? " — no such neces- 
sity exists, and every attempt to prove it has failed ; 
for necessity is to be found only when objects have 
been experienced in close conjunction and succes- 
sion and their ideas have been associated. But we 
pronounce it necessary because we draw a hasty in- 
duction from those cases in which a necessity really 
is involved. 

In Part III. Hume tried to show that inference 
concerning matters of fact not yet observed was a 
matter of imagination, not of reasoning. In Part IV. 
he attempts to do the same thing for demonstration 
concerning the relations of ideas. 

In all the demonstrative sciences occasional mis- 
takes are made. In even a simple arithmetical addi- 
tion oui faculties sometimes play us false. Knowing 
this, we ought to add to any reasoning of this sort 
a second judgment pronouncing upon the probable 
correctness of the first. But this judgment itself may 
be erroneous ; so it also should be corrected by a 
third ; and so on ad infinitum, when none of the orig- 
inal assurance will be left. This is the result that 
Reason would reach were it to determine our belief. 
It is avoided only because the Imagination is too 
sluggish to call up the appropriate images when the 
train of ideas gets more than a very few steps from 
the impression that started it. So, by keeping the 
thought closely confined to present impressions and 
the ideas most immediately associated with them, 
imagination gives an assurance which reason, if al- 
lowed its way, would utterly destroy. 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 33 

Thus all belief is a matter of sense and imagina- 
tion and not of reasoning. 

The next topic is Real Being, and it can be consid- 
ered under two heads : I. Things external or bodies, 
and II. Things internal or souls. 

I. Body. — To ask whether external things exist or 
not is useless ; for believe in them we must ; and the 
only question is, why ? 

As it is impossible to form a mental image of 
anything specifically different from impressions and 
ideas, the conception of external things can be noth- 
ing more than that of certain perceptions possessed 
of a continuous existence independent of any per- 
ceiving mind. To account for the belief in such 
things it is necessary to consider the continuity and 
the independence separately. 

A. The continued existence which the imagination 
attributes to certain perceptions is due to their pe- 
culiar (1) coherence and (2) constancy. 

(1) The Coherence of Impressions. — When there is 
an established relation of contiguity and succession 
between dissimilar impressions, the presence of the 
one leads to the idea and expectation of the other, and 
we get into the way of looking for this uniform se- 
quence even when we have no impression of it. But 
in order to find it we have sometimes to suppose 
that a perception exists when not present to con- 
sciousness. Thus when we perceive wood in the fire- 
place before leaving a room and return to find only 
ashes, the force of habit compels us to imagine the 
burning fire as intervening. This necessity never 



34 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 

arises, however, in the case of the passions ; for their 
effects never appear unless they themselves have been 
present to consciousness. 

(2) The Constancy of certain impressions leads to 
the same result. For when similar impressions con- 
stantly recur the shock of surprise finally disappears, 
and the passage from one such impression to another 
is felt scarcely more than the passage from one 
moment of a continuous perception to the next. 
Both kinds of experience therefore give rise to the 
same easy feeling ; and or. this account they become 
confused, and we tend to regard the recurring impres- 
sions as really continuous and identical. 

B. This leads to the belief in an existence of per- 
ceptions independent of the mind. For, in spite of 
this tendency of the imagination to regard recurring 
impressions as continuous and identical, Reason still 
insists that they are interrupted and different. To 
reconcile the contradiction we therefore suppose two 
sets of perceptions, the one interrupted and depend- 
ent upon the mind that perceives them, the other 
continuous and independent. The latter we now 
distinguish by the name Objects, reserving the term 
Perceptions for the former. 

Thus the idea of an external world of objects and 
the belief in it rest upon unjustifiable yet unavoidable 
confusions and contradictions of imagination. 

II. Souls. — To speak of perceptions apart from a 
preceiving mind is not self-contradictory. For as an 
external object is nothing more than an aggregate of 
qualities, so a mind is nothing more than an aggregate v^T^V 
of perceptions ; and a perception can be said to be 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 35 

present in a mind only in the sense that it is at the 
moment associated with the special group of per- 
ceptions of which that particular mind is made up. 
This is why all discussions about the materiality or 
immateriality of the soul are so meaningless. They 
are attempts to describe the nature of an assumed 
substance underlying all perceptions. But of such a 
substance we can have neither impression nor idea. 
It is therefore nonsense to attempt to describe it or 
even to affirm its existence. 

Though some specially favored metaphysicians may 
be continually conscious of a perfectly identical and 
simple Self, the rest of mankind, when they enter 
most intimately into what they call themselves, can 
find only a collection of rapidly-varying perceptions, 
which, however, are bound together so firmly by 
association that they are often supposed to be a unity, 
simple and identical. 

As to the relation between matter and mind, it is 
through experience alone that any knowledge or idea 
of the causal relation is gained ; and so it cannot be 
maintained a priori, as the followers of Descartes main- 
tain, that motion cannot cause perceptions, nor per- 
ceptions motion. 

The investigation of Human Nature was under- 
taken in the hope that through a knowledge of its 
principles a foundation for all the sciences could be 
laid. But these principles have been found to lead to 
such absurdities and contradictions that no conclu- 
sions reached by their aid can be relied upon ; and 
yet without them there can be no knowledge at all. 



36 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME'S PHILOSOPHY. 

Total scepticism is therefore the only resort — and 
that is impossible. 



CAUSATION. 

Hume's doctrine of causation is the most im- 
portant and at the same time the most difficult part of 
his whole philosophy. It has been often said that 
Hume denied that any idea of necessary connec- 
tion is possible, and that he reduced causation to 
mere uniform sequence. But Hume himself in the 
chapter devoted to the subject expressly stated, and 
emphasized the statement, that the idea of necessary 
connection does enter into the conception of causa- 
tion, and that it must be accounted for. All that he 
denied was that the idea can be accounted for in the 
way in which he believed various authors had attempted 
to account for it, and that it can be applied as these 
writers would apply it. " Necessity is nothing but an 
internal impression of the mind or a determination to 
pass from one object to its usual attendant,"* and a 
necessary connection between anything but thoughts 
cannot be conceived : this is the whole burden of the 
most difficult section in the Treatise. 

But here a difficulty presents itself : how can Hume 
treat the mind's necessity to pass from one idea to 
another as identical with the impression or obser- 
vation of that necessity ? Certainly the two are not 
identical ; but unless they be regarded as such the 
one can no more explain the other than the connec- 

* Pp. 126, 1. 1; 125, 1. 23. See also 112, 1. 28. 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 37 

tion between an act of will and its result can explain 
the knowledge of the connection. 

A similar difficulty is found in Hume's account of 
the cause of the association from which this idea of 
necessity is derived. Does the association of ideas 
result from the mere fact that similar combinations of 
objects frequently recur, or from the observation of the 
fact ? There are at least half a dozen passages in 
which he says, " the observation of this resemblance " * 
between several instances causes the association ; 
while in others he speaks only of the resemblance 
itself. It is true that in ordinary experience it is the 
observation of a constant conjunction between phe- 
nomena which leads to the supposition of a causal 
connection between them. But for Hume's ' infer- 
ence ' this observation is not necessary ; for a repeated 
experience of conjoined phenomena is sufficient to es- 
tablish an association between them whether the fact 
of the repeated conjunction has been observed or not. 

Another question which arises in this connection 
is whether Hume regarded the internal necessity to 
which repeated experience gives rise as a " determina- 
tion of the mind " by an impression or idea, or simply 
as a determination of one idea by another. 

To explain these difficulties it is necessary to con- 
sider Hume's doctrines in their historical connection. 
The plain people regard not only things, but the rela- 
tions between them, as perceived immediately, and 
from this natural realism of common-sense thought 
passes but slowly. It may be discovered, for example, 

* Pp. 125-127. 



3D BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 

that no causal connection can be observed between 
things, while it is still taken for granted that the 
things themselves and their other relations are im- 
mediately known. Or it may be discovered that 
thought is not a copy of things, while it is still as- 
sumed that it is caused by them ; and then the con- 
ception of a Ding an sick or an unknowable arises. 
And even when such ways of thinking are declared to 
be erroneous there is a continual tendency to revert to 
them. In the age in which Hume lived this influence 
of avowedly abandoned modes of thought was ex- 
emplified in the conception of ideas. That things 
cannot be immediately known was recognized, be- 
cause it had been found that there is no direct causal 
relation between extra-bodily objects and the mind. 
The problem was to restore this immediate relation 
between the mind and the object known ; and since 
the mind did not go out to things, it was assumed 
that things came in to the mind, — not themselves, how^ 
ever, but through their representatives, called ideas, 
which were supposed to be conveyed in some way 
or other by the senses to the mind. Thus, something 
was got into the immediate presence of the mind ; 
and perception was explained. 

How these ideas could be perceived when brought 
1 into ' or ' before ' the mind no one asked ; but it was 
taken for granted that the mind could perceive ideas 
and their relations just as easily and just as completely 
as the most naive realist supposed he could perceive 
things. Except that ideas had been substituted for 
things, the standpoint of the philosophers was essen< 
tially that of the plain people. The only problem was 



Brief exposition of hume s philosophy. 39 

to account for the presence of the ideas ; and this 
came to be regarded as a very grave problem indeed, 
for the philosophers were still influenced a good deal 
by the common forms of speech, and were only too 
apt to regard both ideas and the physical motion that 
causes them as shadowy entities which could 'inhere ' 
in mind or in matter, and be ' imparted,' ' communi- 
cated,' or ' conveyed ' from one thing capable of ' pos- 
sessing ' them to another. Now when the Cartesians 
discovered that the essence of the mind is thought 
and the essence of matter extension, and that ideas 
cannot exist in things, nor motion in minds ; how is it 
possible, they asked, for any communication to take 
place between matter and mind, unless in passing from 
the one to the other motion becomes thought, and 
Vice versa ? And this seemed to them equally impos- 
sible, for "matter and motion are still matter and mo- 
tion, and 'tis absurd to imagine that the shocking of 
two globular particles should become a sensation of 
pain and that the meeting of two triangular ones 
should afford a pleasure." * 

When they had avoided this difficulty and accounted 
for the presence of ideas in the mind by the Occasion- 
alistic hypothesis, the Cartesians supposed they had 
explained perception, just as Berkeley thought he had 
explained it by his similar supposition that ideas are 
given by God. Hume, with his conception of causa- 
tion, was able to avoid the Cartesian puzzle, about 
the interaction of mind and matter ; and yet, like his 
predecessors, he failed to see the real difficulty con- 

* Treatise, Part IV., Sec. V. 



40 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 

nected with the ordinary conception of perception, and 
took it for granted that he had accounted for ideas of 
color and extension when he had supposed that there 
were colored and extended ideas before the mind, and 
that when he had shown how ideas are related he had 
explained the idea of their relation. 

With this point of view, it was as natural that Hume 
should fail to distinguish between the connection of 
ideas and the impression of their connection, and 
between their repetition and the observation of the 
repetition, as it was that Locke should overlook the 
distinction between the fact that observed qualities 
and substances receive their existence from the ap- 
plication and operation of some other observed being, 
and the knowledge of that fact.* And to make this 
part of his doctrine consistent it must be supposed 
that the 'determination ' Hume spoke of was a deter- 
mination of ideas, and that he used the word ' mind ' 
only loosely and provisionally. 

Thus it was that Hume reduced necessary connec- 
tion, the most objective of all dynamical relations, to 
a mere relation of ideas, perceived immediately with 
the ideas themselves. But, notwithstanding the fact 
that he had accepted the philosophical explanation of 
perception through ideas, throughout his whole ac- 
count of causation he took it for granted that things 
with their contiguity, succession, and constant con- 
junction can be perceived directly; and from this 
strange combination of half-critical and wholly non- 
critical thought there resulted the mixture of phenom- 

* Essay, Book II., Chap. XXVI., Sec. I. 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUMES PHILOSOPHY. 41 

enalism and naive realism which is found in his 
second defininition of a cause. 

Though Hume professed to have no idea of cau- 
sation but that of two objects frequently perceived 
in close succession and the idea of one of them sug- 
gesting that of the other, to account for this sug- 
gestion of one idea by another it was necessary for 
him to assume causal relations independent of it. 
Such was the relation between things contiguous and 
successive and the perceptions they produce; such 
was that between repeated perceptions and the ' habit ' 
of mind which accounts for individual suggestions; 
such was the ' natural ' relation of causation, if Hume 
meant to distinguish it from contiguity as a cause of 
association; and such must be the relation between 
any 'hidden cause' and its effect. It is this kind of 
causation which he quietly assumed, rather than that 
which he defined, that corresponds to the ordinary 
conception of a cause. But Hume had said that the 
ordinary conception is really impossible. What he 
accomplished, therefore, was this: by repeatedly as- 
suming a causation of which he said it was impossible 
to conceive, he accounted for a conception of a cause 
that no one ever really held. 

The nature of the connection involved is not the 
only respect in which the causes Hume assumed to 
exist are different from those he defined. His whole 
account of the idea of causation depended upon the 
'observation ' that causes and effects are always 
closely conjoined in time; and yet when he said that 
every idea is caused by a previous perception resem- 
bling it, he assumed that causes and effects are sim- 



42 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 

ilar, rather than that they are always to be found 
together. Certainly it is impossible that 'ideas of the 
imagination ' can be constantly conjoined with their 
corresponding impressions, when they occur, as Hume 
says, in an entirely different order.* 

How far Hume's rules by which to judge of causes 
and effects are consistent with the doctrine that " any- 
thing may produce anything" ; how many of them are 
the logical consequences of his conception of a cause; 
and how many of them would actually result from the 
principles of the imagination that Hume supposed 
to explain the idea of a cause, cannot be discussed 
here. 

Hume's theory of causation is no more satisfactory 
when applied to the will than when applied to things; 
for the real problem is, not whether the spectator 
feels any inner necessity to pass from one idea to 
another, but whether the agent is under any neces- 
sity to pass from his idea to his act. 

THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY. 

. Hume's account of the idea of causation would have 
been less plausible if his conception of reality had 
been less pliable. 

At the beginning of the Treatise he assumed that 
impressions 'arise in the soul originally from unknown 
and perfectly inexplicable causes.' f As he advanced 
towards his chapter on the idea of necessary connec- 
tion he substituted for this unknowable thing in itself 

*Part I., Sees. I., II., and III. 

f Part I., Sec. II., and Part III., Sec. V. 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 43 

4 objects ' which could be observed to be frequently 
conjoined in time and place, but which could not be 
observed or even thought to be connected. And be- 
fore the chapter was ended he found it necessary to 
join the plain people and assume the knowledge of a 
'nature ' full of connections. 

Having accounted for the idea of necessary con- 
nection by means of this assumption and arrived at 
his semi-realistic and semi-idealistic conception of a 
cause, as " an object precedent and contiguous to 
another, and so united with it that the idea of the 
one determines the mind to form the idea of the 
other," etc., Hume remembered that causation was a 
relation, and that according to his definition rela- 
tions exist between ideas, not things, and so he iden- 
tified his objects with ideas by adding that a cause 
may be considered " either as a comparison of two 
ideas or as an association betwixt them." This over- 
turned his account of the idea of connection ; but 
it enabled him to return to the idealism which he 
formally recognized, and it prepared the way for his 
forthcoming account of the idea of real external 
things. 

Real things can act and be acted upon ; while 
mental images are mere transient states of a perceiv- 
ing subject and can do or suffer nothing. Such images 
are the perceptions with which the Treatise opened. 
But when Hume remembered that his ' objects ' were 
perceptions he still regarded them as possessed of all 
the properties of real things ; though, of course, they 
were immediately present to consciousness, since they 
were perceptions. This made it seem easy to account 



44 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 

for the idea of a set of permanent perceptions, called 
things. 

But it is not, as Hume said, the perceptions them- 
selves that the vulgar believe to have a continued 
existence, but rather the efficient things of which 
Hume's perceptions were after all but lifeless models. 
And the philosophers believe, not in a second set of 
perceptions, but in the same things as the vulgar. 
But the philosophers realize that they know these 
things only through their own mental images, and so 
they suppose there are three facts : the thing, the 
image of it, and the mind knowing the thing by per- 
ceiving the image ; while the vulgar are so busily con- 
cerned with the things themselves that it never occurs 
to them that any image intervenes between the things 
and their knowledge of them. For them, therefore, 
there are but two facts : the thing and the mind 
knowing it. For Hume also there were two facts ; and 
this is why he identified his 'objects' with those of 
the vulgar. But Hume's facts were the image and 
the mind knowing it; and an image is not a thing. 

Both Hume and Kant started with the assumption 
that perceptions are caused by a thing in itself, pos- 
sessed of all the extra-mental reality that the plain 
people believe things to have ; and when they came 
to account for the conception of reality, what they 
both explained was not the idea of the transcenden- 
tal things which they and the plain people had alike 
assumed to exist ; but it was the idea of some phe- 
nomenal 'permanent in perception,' the conception 
of which had been developed in the course of their 
philosophy. 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME'S PHILOSOPHY. 4<J 

Though at this stage of his philosophy Hume sup- 
posed his conceptions to be those of the plain people, 
there could be no doubt about the next ; for having 
made all the use that was necessary of the popular 
assumption of a mind capable of forming habits and 
perceiving what is presented to it, Hume proceeded 
to show that this assumption is just as impossible as 
is the idea of an external substance, and that the per- 
ceptions themselves are the only reality. These self- 
existent perceptions he supposed, presumably, not only 
to know themselves, but to have a share in the knowl- 
edge of any other images with which they might be- 
come associated. How the group of perceptions 
which he made to constitute a mind is to be distin- 
guished from the group which constitutes a thing, or 
whether there is any distinction between them, Hume 
did not say. 

THE BELIEF IN REALITY. 

When Hume tried to show how the belief in the in- 
dependent existence of ' objects ' resulted from the 
belief in the permanence of perceptions he reversed 
the natural order. For people are realists before they 
are idealists ; and the earliest perceptions that we know 
anything about already carry with them a reference to 
something which they claim to represent. When we 
make use of the conception of a coherent order of 
nature, it is not to prove that most perceptions really 
do represent reality, but to show that some of them 
do not; for any particular perception can be shown to 
be an illusion only if a great many others with which 



46 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUMe's PHILOSOPHY. 

it does not cohere are already believed to represent 
reality. 

In his section on Scepticism with regard to the 
Senses Hume proved that from mere subjective images 
there can be no logical inference to any reality be- 
yond them. This is true. But, since the given men- 
tal facts, though subjective, are more than mere 
images, belief in extra-mental things does not involve 
all the absurdities that Hume supposed. That this 
belief cannot be proved to be correct is no reason 
that we should accept it unwillingly ; for all reasoning 
must be based on premises which are accepted, not 
proved. Whether these premises rest upon the 
imagination, as Hume supposed, or whether they 
have a much deeper root in the whole mind and life, is 
a matter of indifference so Jong as they are necessary. 
Hume especially had no right to profess uneasiness 
at the thought that belief rested ultimately upon the 
imagination ; for he had resolved all thinking into 
imagining. And he had no right to ask whether 
he should accept the suggestions of the more or of 
the less general principles of the imagination, or 
to hesitate because these suggestions were contra- 
dictory ; for to him all conviction was a matter of 
necessity, and choice he had none. 

CONFIDENCE IN REASON. 

Hume's proof that logically reason should not be 
trusted rests upon an obvious fallacy. Granting that 
every judgment should be tested by another, and that 
each one would weaken the confidence reposed in that 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 47 

preceding it, it does not follow that all the original 
conviction would be finally destroyed; for, in weaken- 
ing the conviction attached to the second judgment, 
the third strengthens that belonging to the first : i — 
(^ — i) = f , not 5, as Hume's argument supposes ; 
and the sum of the series is two thirds, not zero. The 
truth is that every judgment carries conviction with 
it; and if to make an error proves reason's weakness, 
to detect it proves its strength. 

Though Hume failed to prove the untrustworthi- 
ness of reasoning, and though he was wrong in mak- 
ing belief nothing more than the vivacity of impres- 
sions, he was right in maintaining, in an age where 
mathematical demonstration was regarded as the 
highest type of thought, that much demonstrative 
reasoning carries with it less assurance than may 
often be attained in other ways. It is intense sensa- 
tions, strong feelings, and vigorous action that produce 
the deepest convictions. 

INFERENCE. 

When Hume accepted the view that all thought 
could be resolved into imagination, it naturally fol- 
lowed that the only test of truth which he could 
accept was conceivability ; and the only inference, 
the passing of thought from one image to another. 
But though it is necessary that a conclusion be 
suggested in order that it be thought of at all, the 
mere passing in thought from one image to another 
is not sufficient to constitute inference. For, while 
fundamental beliefs are merely caused, and not 



48 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME'S PH1LOSOFHY. 

proved, inferences are conclusions thought to be 
warranted by the evidence. And causation is impor- 
tant for inference, because conclusions based upon the 
law of causation are thought to be warranted by what 
is known of the objectively fixed order of events 
which causation implies. 

Even if the association of ideas could account, as 
Hume supposed, for the inference from causes to 
effects, it could not account for the inference from 
effects to causes ; for when the order of ideas is to 
be reversed mere contiguity and succession form but 
a poor bond between them, and do not convey much 
' vivacity ' from one to another, as we learn when we 
try to say the alphabet backwards. Moreover, when 
inference and causation are both resolved into the 
association of ideas, the one cannot be said to be 
either warranted or caused by the other, for they have 
become indistinguishable. And, finally, were there 
no reality beyond themselves to which perceptions 
refer, there could be no distinction between true and 
false perceptions; and none between valid and invalid, 
warranted and unwarranted, inferences. 

In his account of inference, therefore, as in his 
account of the ideas of causation and reality, Hume 
made no attempt to explain what is most important. 
But he did one great thing : he proved that the belief 
in the uniformity of nature, without which neither 
science nor work would be possible, rests upon causes 
and not upon proofs. And thus he emphasized the 
great part played by faith in every sphere of life. 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 49 



THE TREATISE AND THE ENQUIRY. 

The foregoing introductory paragraphs have had 
reference to the Treatise of Human Nature rather 
than to the Enquiry concerning Human Understand- 
ing, and the extracts to follow have been taken from 
the same work. There is, however, considerable 
difference between the two books. 

The Treatise was written when Hume's enthusiasm 
for philosophy had received no check, and it is 
characterized by the keenest observation of psycho- 
logical facts and by a relentless logic, however para- 
doxical the conclusions to which that logic leads. 
The very confusion which often makes it so difficult 
to follow the argument is due to Hume's desire to 
overlook no difficulty and to leave the origin of no 
idea unexplained, however absurd that idea may be. 

The Enquiry, on the other hand, was written after 
the bitterly disappointing reception given the Treatise 
had quenched much of Hume's zeal for philosophy 
and driven him to work in other fields of literature. 
Having learned there to gauge the popular taste, 
Hume recast parts of the Treatise in essay form, and 
published them in the various Enquiries. But now 
not only was he addressing a popular audience, but he 
had lost enthusiasm for his subject, and the Enquiry 
concerning Human Understanding suggests more 
than a suspicion that Hume's interest in it was more 
anti-theological than psychological. The introduction 
speaks, not of the foundation to be laid for all the 
sciences by the study of human nature, but of popu- 



50 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 

lar superstitions to be driven from their shelter 
among the brambles of metaphysics; sections taken 
from the Treatise are modified so as to state, not only 
that certain philosophers are unable to explain the 
origin of certain ideas, but that they ' diminish in- 
stead of magnifying the grandeur of those attributes 
of the Creator which they affect so much to cele- 
brate,' and to speak of "dogmas invented on pur- 
pose to tame and subdue the rebellious reason of 
mankind"; and in the Enquiry entirely new sections 
on Miracles and a Particular Providence and a Future 
State are introduced. All the difficult parts of the 
Treatise in which Hume had attempted to account 
for the apparent existence of ideas which he regarded 
as impossible are omitted from the Enquiry ; so that 
its work is purely destructive. And instead of hon- 
estly following even such reasoning as was allowed to 
remain to its logical conclusion, and exposing himself, 
as he had said in the Treatise, " to the enmity of all 
metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even 
theologians," by discrediting all knowledge and all 
science, Hume distinguished in the Enquiry between 
the excessive scepticism to which his principles logi- 
cally lead and a more mitigated scepticism ; and by 
adopting the latter, he rescued books of ' abstract rea- 
soning concerning quantity and number and of ex- 
perimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and 
existence ' from the flames to which all the other vol- 
umes in one's library were to be condemned as con- 
taining nothing but sophistry and illusion. And this 
in spite of the fact that in the very same section not 
only had he made use of the 'paradoxical conclusions 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUMES PHILOSOPHY. 5 I 

of geometry or the science of quantity, big with con- 
tradiction and absurdity,' as an argument against " all 
abstract reasonings " ; but had made the sceptic to 
insist justly " that all our evidence for any matter of 
fact which lies beyond the testimony of sense or 
memory " rests ultimately upon nothing more than 
" custom or a certain instinct of our nature, which is 
indeed difficult to resist, but which, like other in- 
stincts, may be fallacious and deceitful." 

In short, though in style the Enquiry "exhibits 
a great improvement on the Treatise ", Professor 
Huxley is right in saying that the substance "is cer- 
tainly not improved." What is new is out of place in 
a psychological study, and the changes made in what 
is old indicate pretty plainly that the earnest critical 
thinker of the Treatise had acquired many character- 
istics of the mere sophist. 

Parts of the ' Treatise ' not Represented in the ' 'Enquiry' 
Part I. 

Sec. 2. Distinction between Impressions of Sensa- 
tion and of Reflection. 

" 3. Distinction between Memory and Imagina- 
tion. 

" 5. Distinction between Natural and Philoso- 
phical Relations. Enumeration of the 
Philosophical Relations or Categories. 

" 6. The Ideas of Mode and Substance. 

" 7. ' Of Abstract Ideas.' (Represented by only 
ten lines and a note in Sec, XII. of the 
Enquiry.) 



52 BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUMES PHILOSOPHY. 

Part II. 

Sees. 1-5. Space and Time. (Represented by only 
a page and a half in Sec. XII. of the 
Enquiry, where mathematical para- 
doxes are used to show the weakness 
of reason.) 

Sec. 6. ' Of the Ideas of Existence and of External 
Existence.' 

Part III. 

Sec. 1. 'Of Knowledge.' (Represented in the En- 
quiry only by the distinction between 
matters of fact and relations of ideas.) 
" 3. ' Why a Cause is always Necessary.' 
" 10. ' Of the Influence of Belief.' 
Sees. 11, 12, 13. Probability. (Represented by only 

two pages of the Enquiry.) 
Sec. 15. 'Rules by which to judge of Causes and 
Effects.' 

Part IV. 

Sec. 2. Why we believe in external things. 
" 3. ' Of the Ancient Philosophy.' The ideas of 
Substances, Accidents, and Occult Quali- 
ties. 
" 5. ' Of the Immateriality of the Soul.' 
" 6. 'Of Personal Identity.' 



BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HUME S PHILOSOPHY. 53 

Parts of the ' 'Enquiry ' not Represented in the ' Treatise' 

Sec. 1. The distinction between the Rhetorical and 
the Critical Philosophy. 

" 10. ' Of Miracles.' 

"11, ' Of a Particular Providence and of a Future 
State.' 

" 12. The distinction between Pyrrhonism or ex- 
cessive scepticism and the Academical 
Philosophy or a more mitigated scepti- 
cism. 



HUME'S INFLUENCE UPON SUB- 

SEQUENT PHILOSOPHIC 

THOUGHT, 



Hume's reasoning, which finds its logical conclusion 
in total and helpless scepticism, showed how hopeless 
was the attempt to account for knowledge on Locke's 
theory that all ideas are derived from sense, and how 
impossible it was to justify knowledge on Descartes' 
principle that ideas which cannot be proved to repre- 
sent reality should be treated as false. It therefore 
led on the one side to Kant's search for the innate 
forms of knowledge overlooked by Locke, and on the 
other to Reid's philosophy of Common Sense which 
rejected the whole ' ideal system' and held to an im- 
mediate knowledge of reality. 

Again, by eliminating all necessity from nature and 
by making all reasoning depend ultimately upon the 
imagination, Hume threw doubts upon the funda- 
mental assumptions of Spinoza and the other ration- 
alistic Ontologists who had been carried away by the 
mathematical sciences and had tried to make the 
universe ' a system of abstract truths related to each 
other as the propositions of Euclid are related to his 
axioms and substantialized by their reference to 
God or pure Being.' When he had done this, the 
Materialists proposed to "escape to the world of tan- 
gible, visible, sense-giving realities."* Thus Hume 

* Stephen : English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, I., 65. 

55 



56 INFLUENCE UPON PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHT. 

gave a new impulse to the French Illumination with 
its wide-spread influences. 

Hume has also exerted an immense direct influence 
over the course of English thought. His religious es- 
says with their clear style, coming as they did at the 
close of the Deistic Controversy, attracted more im- 
mediate attention than his philosophical writings ; and 
they are still the arsenal from which most anti-theo- 
logical weapons are borrowed. The Treatise was too 
obscure to be read by the general public, even after at- 
tention had been called to it through the various En- 
quiries ; so that as late as 1808 an unfriendly critic felt 
at liberty to write : " His strictly philosophical works 
seem likely to fall into utter neglect; but his History, 
we need not say, is the basis of his permanent reputa- 
tion. " * Yet in the English Associational School the 
influence of Hume's psychology has been deeply felt. 

At the present time his importance is fully recog- 
nized ; and Professor Huxley on the one hand de- 
scribes him " as the parent of Kant and as the pro- 
tagonist of that more modern way of thinking which 
has been called ' agnosticism ' ", and says that " that 
to which succeeding generations have, made, are mak- 
ing, and will make continual additions is Hume's 
fame as a philosopher " ; f while on the other hand 
the late Professor Green called him the " last great 
English philosopher ", but made use of him to show 
how hollow this " more modern way of thinking " is. % 

*John Foster, in the Eclectic Review. 

f ' Hume '—English Men of Letters Series — pp. 58, 43. 

% Introduction to his edition of the Treatise. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME AS CON- 
TAINED IN EXTRACTS FROM THE 
FIRST BOOK AND THE FIRST AND 
SECOND SECTIONS OF THE 
THIRD PART OF THE 
SECOND BOOK OF THE 
TREATISE OF HU- 
MAN NATURE. 



57 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. 



INTRODUCTION. 

It is evident that all the sciences have a relation, 
greater or less, to human nature ; and that however 
wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still 
return back by one passage or another. Even Mathe- 
matics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion are 
in some measure dependent on the science of Man ; 
since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are 
judged of by their powers and faculties. It is impossi- 
ble to tell what changes and improvements we might 
make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted 
with the extent and force of human understanding, 
and could explain the nature of the ideas we employ, 
and of the operations we perform in our reasonings. 

There is no question of importance whose decision 
is not comprised in the science of man ; and there is 
none which can be decided with any certainty before 
we become acquainted with that science. In pretend- 
ing therefore to explain the principles of human 
nature, we in effect propose a complete system of the 
sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new, 
and the only one upon which they can stand with any 
security. And, as the science of man is the only solid 

59 



60 INTRODUCTION. 

foundation for the other sciences, so the only solid 
foundation we can give to this science itself must be 
laid on experience and observation. 

For to me it seems evident that, the essence of the 
mind being equally unknown to us with that of exter- 
nal bodies, it must be equally impossible to form any 
notion of its powers and qualities otherwise than from 
careful and exact experiments and the observation of 
those particular effects which result from its different 
circumstances and situations. 

We must therefore glean up our experiments in this 
science from a cautious observation of human life, 
and take them as they appear in the common course 
of the world, by men's behavior in company, in affairs, 
and in their pleasures. Where experiments of this 
kind are judiciously collected and compared, we may 
hope to establish on them a science which will not 
be inferior in certainty, and will be much superior in 
utility, to any other of human comprehension. 



PART I. 

OF IDEAS, THEIR ORIGIN, COMPOSITION, CON- 
NECTION, ABSTRACTION, ETC. 



SECTION I. 

Of the origin of our ideas. 

All the perceptions of the human mind resolve 
themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call 
Impressions and Ideas. The difference betwixt 
these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness 
with which they strike upon the mind and make their 
way into our thought or consciousness. Those per- 
ceptions which enter with most force and violence 
we may name impressions ; and under this name I 
comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions, 
as they make their first appearance in the soul. By 
ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and 
reasoning ; such as, for instance, are all the percep- 
tions excited by the present discourse, excepting only 
those which arise from the sight and touch, and ex- 
cepting the immediate pleasure or uneasiness it may 
occasion. I believe it will not be very necessary to 
employ many words in explaining this distinction. 

61 



62 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part I. 

Every one of himself will readily perceive the differ- 
ence betwixt feeling and -thinking. The common de- 
grees of these are easily distinguished ; though it is 
not impossible but in particular instances they may 
very nearly approach to each other. Thus in sleep, 
in a fever, in madness, or in any very violent emotions 
of soul, our ideas may approach to our impressions: as 
on the other hand it sometimes happens that our im- 
pressions are so faint and low that we cannot dis- 
tinguish them from our ideas. But notwithstanding 
this near resemblance in a few instances, they are in 
general so very different that no one can make a 
scruple to rank them under distinct heads, and assign 
to each a peculiar name to mark the difference. 

There is another division of our perceptions which 
it will be convenient to observe, and which extends 
itself both to our impressions and ideas. This divi- 
sion is into Simple and Complex. Simple percep- 
tions or impressions and ideas are such as admit of 
no distinction nor separation. The complex are the 
contrary to these, and may be distinguished into parts. 
Though a particular color, taste, and smell are quali- 
ties all united together in this apple, it is easy to per- 
ceive they are not the same, but are at least distin- 
guishable from each other. 

Though there is in general a great resemblance 
betwixt our complex impressions and ideas, yet the 
rule is not universally true that they are exact copies 
of each other; for I can imagine to myself such a 
city as the New Jerusalem, whose pavement is gold 
and walls are rubies, though I never saw any such. 
We may next consider how the case stands with our 



Sec. I.] OF IDEAS. 63 

simple perceptions. After the most accurate exam- 
ination of which I am capable, I venture to affirm 
that the rule here holds without any exception, and 
that every simple idea has a simple impression, which 
resembles it ; and every simple impression a corre- 
spondent idea. That idea of red which we form in 
the dark, and that impression which strikes our eyes 
in sunshine, differ only in degree, not in nature. 

We shall here content ourselves with establishing 
one general proposition, That all our simple ideas i?i 
their first appearance are derived from simple impres- 
sions, which are correspondent to them, and which they 
exactly represent. We find that any impression either 
of the mind or body is constantly followed by an 
idea which resembles it and is only different in the 
degrees of force and liveliness. The constant con- 
junction of our resembling perceptions is a convincing 
proof that the one are the causes of the other ; and 
this priority of the impressions is an equal proof that 
our impressions are the causes of our ideas, not our 
ideas of pur impressions. 

As our ideas are images of our impressions, so we 
can form secondary ideas, which are images of the 
primary; but, as the first ideas are supposed to be de- 
rived from impressions, it still remains true that all 
our simple ideas proceed either mediately or imme- 
diately from their correspondent impressions. 

This then is the first principle I establish in the 
science of human nature. 



64 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART I. 



SECTIONS II., III. 

Division of the subject, and of the ideas of memory 
and imagination. 

Impressions may be divided into two kinds, those 
of Sensation and those of Reflection. The first 
kind arises in the soul originally, from unknown 
causes. The second is derived in a great measure 
from our ideas, and that in the following order. An 
impression first strikes upon the senses, and makes us 
perceive heat or cold, thirst or hunger, pleasure or 
pain of some kind or other. Of this impression there 
is a copy taken by the mind, which remains after the 
impression ceases ; and this we call an idea. This 
idea of pleasure or pain, when it returns upon the soul 
produces the new impressions of desire and aversion, 
hope and fear, which may properly be called impres- 
sions of reflection, because derived from it. These 
again are copied by the memory and imagination, and 
become ideas ; which perhaps in their turn give rise 
to other impressions and ideas. So that the impres- 
sions of reflection are only antecedent to their corre- 
spondent ideas ; but posterior to those of sensation, 
and derived from them. 

We find by experience that when any impression 
has been present with the mind it again makes its 
appearance there as an idea ; and this it may do after 
two different ways : either when in its new appearance 
it retains a considerable degree of its first vivacity 
and is somewhat intermediate betwixt an impression 



Sec. IV.] of ideas. 65 

and an idea ; or when it entirely loses that vivacity, 
and is a perfect idea. The faculty by which we repeat 
our impressions in the first manner is called the 
Memorv, and the other the Imagination. It is 
evident at first sight that the ideas of the mem- 
ory are much more lively and strong than those of the 
imagination, and that the former faculty paints its 
objects in more distinct colors than any which are 
employed by the latter. When we remember any past 
event, the idea of it flows in upon the mind in a for- 
cible manner ; whereas in the imagination the percep- 
tion is faint and languid, and cannot without difficulty 
be preserved by the mind steady and uniform for any 
considerable time. Here then is a sensible difference 
betwixt one species of ideas and another. But of this 
more fully hereafter. 

There is another difference betwixt these two kinds 
of ideas which is no less evident, namely, that though 
neither the ideas of the memory nor imagination, 
neither the lively nor faint ideas, can make their ap- 
pearance in the mind unless their correspondent im- 
pressions have gone before to prepare the way for 
them, yet the imagination is not restrained to the 
same order and form with the original impressions; 
while the memory is in a manner tied down in that 
respect, without any power of variation. 

SECTION IV. 

Of the connection or association of ideas. 

As all simple ideas may be separated by the imagi- 
nation, and may be united again in what form it 



66 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART I. 

pleases, nothing would be more unaccountable than 
the operations of that faculty, were it not guided by 
some universal principles, which render it in some 
measure uniform with itself in all times and places. 
Were ideas entirely loose and unconnected, chance 
alone would join them; and it is impossible the same 
simple ideas should fall regularly into complex ones 
(as they commonly do) without some bond of union 
among them, some associating quality, by which one 
idea naturally introduces another. The qualities 
from which this association arises, and by which the 
mind is after this manner conveyed from one idea to 
another, are three, viz., Resemblance, Contiguity in 
time or place, and Cause and Effect. 

It is plain that in the course of our thinking, and 
in the constant revolution of our ideas, our imagina- 
tion runs easily from one idea to any other that resem- 
bles it, and that this quality alone is to the fancy a 
sufficient bond and association. It is likewise evi- 
dent that as the senses, in changing their objects, are 
necessitated to change them regularly, and take them 
as they lie contiguous to each other, the imagination 
must by long custom acquire the same method of 
thinking, and run along the parts of space and time in 
conceiving its objects. As to the connection that 
is made by the relation of cause and effect, we shall 
have occasion afterwards to examine it to the bottom, 
and therefore shall not at present insist upon it. It is 
sufficient to observe that there is no relation which 
produces a stronger connection in the fancy, and 
makes one idea more readily recall another, than the 
relation of cause and effect betwixt their objects. 



Sec. V.l of ideas. 67 

That we may understand the full extent of these re- 
lations we must consider that two objects are con- 
nected together in the imagination, not only when the 
one is immediately resembling, contiguous to, or the 
cause of the other, but also when there is interposed 
betwixt them a third object which bears to both of 
them any of these relations. This may be carried on 
to a great length; though at the same time we may 
observe that each remove considerably weakens the 
relation. 

Amongst the effects of this union or association of 
ideas, there are none more remarkable than those 
complex ideas which are the common subjects of our 
thoughts and reasoning and generally arise from some 
principle of union among our simple ideas. These 
complex ideas may be divided into Relations, Modes, 
and Substances. We shall briefly examine each of 
these in order, and shall subjoin some considerations 
concerning our general and particular ideas, before we 
leave the present subject, which may be considered 
as the elements of this philosophy. 

SECTION V. 

Of relations. 

The word Relation is commonly used in two senses 
considerably different from each other. Either for 
that quality by which two ideas are connected to- 
gether in the imagination and the one naturally intro- 
duces the other, after the manner above explained ; or 
for that particular circumstance in which, even upon 
the arbitrary union of two ideas in the fancy, we may 



68 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART I. 

think proper to compare them. In common language 
the former is always the sense in which we use the 
word relation; and it is only in philosophy that we 
extend it to mean any particular subject of compari- 
son, without a connecting principle. Thus distance 
will be allowed by philosophers to be a true relation, 
because we acquire an idea of it by the comparing of 
objects ; but in a common way we say that nothing 
can be more distant than such or such things from each 
other, nothing can have less relation, as if distance and 
relation were incompatible. 

It may perhaps be esteemed an endless task to enu- 
merate all those qualities which make objects admit 
of comparison, and by which the ideas of philosophical 
relation are produced. But if we diligently consider 
them we shall find that without difficulty they may be 
comprised under seven general heads, which may be 
considered as the sources of all philosophical relation. 

i. The first is resemblance : and this is a relation 
without which no philosophical relation can exist ; 
since no objects will admit of comparison but what 
have some degree of resemblance. But, though resem- 
blance be necessary to all philosophical relation, it 
does not follow that it always produces a connection 
or association of ideas. When a quality becomes very 
general and is common to a great many individuals, 
it leads not the mind directly to any one of them ; 
but, by presenting at once too great a choice, does 
thereby prevent the imagination from fixing on any 
single object. 

2. Identity may be esteemed a second species of 
relation. This relation I here consider as applied in 



Sec. V.] OF IDEAS. 69 

its strictest sense to constant and unchangeable ob- 
jects ; without examining the nature and foundation 
of personal identity, which shall find its place after- 
wards. Of all relations the most universal is that of 
identity, being common to every being whose exist- 
ence has any duration. 

3. After identity the most universal and compre- 
hensive relations are those of Space and Time, which 
are the sources of an infinite number of comparisons, 
such as distant, contiguous, above, below, before, after, &c. 

4. All those objects which admit of quantity or 
number may be compared in that particular ; which 
is another very fertile source of relation. 

5. When any two objects possess the same quality 
in common, the degrees in which they possess it 
form a fifth species of relation. Thus, of two objects 
which are both heavy, the one may be either of 
greater or less weight than the other. Two colors 
that are of the same kind may yet be of different 
shades, and in that respect admit of comparison. 

6. The relation of contrariety may at first sight be 
regarded as an exception to the rule that no relation 
of any kind can subsist without some degree of resem- 
blance. But let us consider that no two ideas are in 
themselves contrary except those of existence and 
non-existence, which are plainly resembling, as imply- 
ing both of them an idea of the object ; though the 
latter excludes the object from all times and places 
in which it is supposed not to exist. 

7. All other objects, such as fire and water, heat 
and cold, are only found to be contrary from experi- 
ence, and from the contrariety of their causes or effects ; 



70 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART I. 

which relation of cause and effect is a seventh philo- 
sophical relation, as well as a natural one. The re- 
semblance implied in this relation shall be explained 
afterwards. 

It might naturally be expected that I should join 
difference to the other relations. But that I consider 
rather as a negation of relation than as anything real 
or positive. Difference is of two kinds as opposed 
either to identity or resemblance. The first is called 
a difference of number ; the other of kind. 

SECTION VI. 

Of modes and substances. 

I would fain ask those philosophers who found so 
much of their reasonings on the distinction of sub- 
stance and accident, and imagine we have clear ideas 
of each, whether the idea of substance be derived from 
the impressions of sensation or of reflection ? If it be 
conveyed to us by our senses, I ask, which of them ; 
and after what manner ? If it be perceived by the 
eyes, it must be a color ; if by the ears, a sound ; if 
by the palate, a taste ; and so of the other senses. 
But I believe none will assert that substance is either 
a color, or sound, or a taste. The idea of substance 
must therefore be derived from an impression of re- 
flection, if it really exist. But the impressions of re- 
flection resolve themselves into our passions and emo- 
tions ; none of which can possibly represent a sub- 
stance. We have therefore no idea of substance, dis- 
tinct from that of a collection of particular qualities, 



Sec. VI.] OE ideas. yr 

nor have we any other meaning when we either talk 
or reason concerning it. 

The idea of a substance, as well as that of a mode, 
is nothing but a collection of simple ideas that are 
united by the imagination and have a particular 
name assigned them, by which we are able to recall, 
either to ourselves or others, that collection. But 
the difference betwixt these ideas consists in this, 
that the particular qualities which form a substance 
are commonly referred to an unknown something in 
which they are supposed to inhere ; or, granting this 
fiction should not take place, are at least supposed to 
be closely and inseparably connected by the relations 
of contiguity and causation. The effect of this is 
that whatever new simple quality we discover to have 
the same connection with the rest, we immediately 
comprehend it among them, even though it did not 
enter into the first conception of the substance. 
Thus our idea of gold may at first be a yellow color, 
weight, malleableness, fusibility ; but upon the dis- 
covery of its dissolubility in aqua regia, we join that to 
the qualities, and suppose it to belong to the substance 
as much as if its idea had from the beginning made a 
part of the compound one. The principle of union 
being regarded as the chief part of the complex idea 
gives entrance to whatever quality afterwards occurs, 
and is equally comprehended by it as are the others, 
which first presented themselves. 

That this cannot take place in modes is evident 
from considering their nature. The simple ideas of 
which modes are formed either represent qualities 
which are not united by contiguity and causation, 



72 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part I. 

but are dispersed in different subjects ; or if they be 
all united together, the uniting principle is not re- 
garded as the foundation of the complex idea. The 
idea of a dance is an instance of the first kind of 
modes ; that of beauty of the second. The reason is 
obvious why such complex ideas cannot receive any 
new idea without changing the name which distin- 
tinguishes the mode. 

SECTION VII. 

Of abstract ideas. 

A very material question has been started concern- 
ing abstract or general ideas, whether they be general or 
particular in the mind's conception of them. A * great 
philosopher has disputed the received opinion in this 
particular, and has asserted that all general ideas are 
nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain 
term which gives them a more extensive signification 
and makes them recall upon occasion other individu- 
als which are similar to them. As I look upon this 
to be one of the greatest and most valuable discover- 
ies that has been made of late years in the republic of 
letters, I shall here endeavor to confirm it by some 
arguments which I hope will put it beyond all doubt 
and controversy. 

It is evident that in forming most of our general 
ideas, if not all of them, we abstract from every par- 
ticular degree of quantity and quality, and that an 
object ceases not to be of any particular species on 
account of every small alteration in its extension, 
* Dr. Berkeley. 



Sec. VII.] OF ideas. 73 

duration, and other properties. It may therefore be 
thought that here is a plain dilemma that decides 
concerning the nature of those abstract ideas which 
have afforded so much speculation to philosophers. 
The abstract idea of a man represents men of all 
sizes and all qualities ; which it is concluded it can- 
not do, but either by representing at once all possible 
sizes and all possible qualities, or by representing no 
particular one at all. Now, it having been esteemed 
absurd to defend the former proposition, as implying 
an infinite capacity in the mind, it has been com- 
monly inferred in favor of the latter ; and our abstract 
ideas have been supposed to represent no particular 
degree either of quantity or quality. But that this 
inference is erroneous I shall endeavor to make ap- 
pear, first, by proving that it is utterly impossible to 
conceive any quantity or quality without forming a 
precise notion of its degrees ; and, secondly, by show- 
ing that, though the capacity of the mind be not in- 
finite, yet we can at once form a notion of all possible 
degrees of quantity and quality, in such a manner, at 
least, as, however imperfect, may serve all the purposes 
of reflection and conversation. 

To begin with the first proposition, that the mind 
cannot form any notion of quantity or quality without 
forming a precise notion of degrees of each ; we may 
prove this by the three following arguments. First, 
we have observed that whatever objects are different 
are distinguishable, and that whatever objects are dis- 
tinguishable are separable by the thought and imagi- 
nation. And we may here add that these proposi- 
tions are equally true in the inverse, and that whatever 



74 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part I. 

objects are separable are also distinguishable, and 
that whatever objects are distinguishable are also dif- 
ferent. For how is it possible we can separate what 
is not distinguishable, or distinguish what is not dif- 
ferent ? In order therefore to know whether abstrac- 
tion implies a separation, we need only consider it in 
this view, and examine whether all the circumstances 
which we abstract from in our general ideas be such 
as are distinguishable and different from those which 
we retain as essential parts of them. But it is evident 
at first sight that the precise length of a line is not 
different nor distinguishable from the line itself ; nor 
the precise degree of any quality from the quality. 
These ideas, therefore, admit no more of separation 
than they do of distinction and difference. They are 
consequently conjoined with each other in the con- 
ception ; and the general idea of a line, notwithstand- 
ing all our abstractions and refinements, has in its 
appearance in the mind a precise degree of quantity 
and quality ; however it may be made to represent 
others which have different degrees of both. 

Secondly, it is confessed that no object can appear to 
the senses, or, in other words, that no impression can 
become present to the mind, without being determined 
in its degrees of both quantity and quality. 

Now, since all ideas are derived from impressions, 
and are nothing but copies and representations of 
them, whatever is true of the one must be acknowl- 
edged concerning the other. Impressions and ideas 
differ only in their strength and vivacity. 

Thirdly, it is a principle generally received in phi- 
losophy, that everything in nature is individual, and 



Sec. VII.] of ideas. 75 

that it is utterly absurd to suppose a triangle really 
existent which has no precise proportion of sides 
and angles. If this therefore be absurd in fact and 
reality^ it must also be absurd in idea ; since nothing 
of which we can form a clear and distinct idea is 
absurd and impossible. Abstract ideas are therefore 
in themselves individual, however they may become 
general in their representation. The image in the 
mind is only that of a particular object, though the 
application of it in our reasoning be the same as if it 
were universal. 

This application of ideas beyond their nature pro- 
ceeds from our collecting all their possible degrees of 
quantity and quality in such an imperfect manner as 
may serve the purposes of life, which is the second 
proposition I proposed to explain. When we have 
found a resemblance among several objects that often 
occur to us, we apply the same name to all of them, 
whatever differences we may observe in the degrees 
of their quantity and quality, and whatever other dif- 
ferences may appear among them. After we have ac- 
quired a custom of this kind, the hearing of that name 
revives the idea of one of these objects, and makes the 
imagination conceive it with all its particular circum- 
stances and proportions. 

After the mind has produced an individual idea, 
upon which we reason, the attendant custom revived 
by the general or abstract term readily suggests any 
other individual, if by chance we form any reasoning 
that agrees not with it. Thus should we mention the 
word, triangle, and form the idea of a particular equi- 
lateral one to correspond to it, and should we after- 



)& THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part I. 

wards assert that the three angles of a triangle are equal 
to each other, the other individuals of a scalenum and 
isosceles, which we overlooked at first, immediately 
crowd in upon us, and make us perceive the false- 
hood of this proposition, though it be true with relation 
to that idea which we had formed. If the mind sug- 
gests not always these ideas upon occasion, it pro- 
ceeds from some imperfection in its faculties ; and 
such a one as is often the source of false reasoning 
and sophistry. But this is principally the case with 
those ideas which are abstruse and compounded. On 
other occasions the custom is more entire, and it is 
seldom we run into such errors. 

Before I leave this subject I shall employ the same 
principles to explain that distinction of reason which 
is so much talked of, and is so little understood, in 
the schools. Of this kind is the distinction betwixt 
figure and the body figured, motion and the body 
moved. The difficulty of explaining this distinction 
arises from the principle above explained, that all 
ideas which are different are separable. For it follows 
from thence that, if the figure be different from the 
body, their ideas must be separable as well as dis- 
tinguishable ; if they be not different, their ideas can 
neither be separable nor distinguishable. What then 
is meant by a distinction of reason, since it implies 
neither a difference nor separation ? 

To remove this difficulty we must have recourse to 
the foregoing explication of abstract ideas. It is 
certain that the mind would never have dreamed of 
distinguishing a figure from the body figured, as being 
in reality neither distinguishable, nor different, nor 



Sec. VII.] OF ideas. 77 

separable, did it not observe that even in this 
simplicity there might be contained many different 
resemblances and relations. Thus, when a globe of 
white marble is presented, we receive only the im- 
pression of a white color disposed in a certain form, 
nor are we able to separate and distinguish the color 
from the form. But, observing afterwards a globe of 
black marble and a cube of white, and comparing 
them with our former object, we find two separate 
resemblances in what formerly seemed, and really is, 
perfectly inseparable. After a little more practice of 
this kind we begin to distinguish the figure from the 
color by a distinction of reason; that is, we consider 
the figure and color together, since they are in effect 
the same and undistinguishable ; but still view them 
in different aspects, according to the resemblances of 
which they are susceptible. When we would consider 
only the figure of the globe of white marble, we form 
in reality an idea both of the figure and color, but 
tacitly carry our eye to its resemblance with the globe 
of black marble : and in the same manner, when we 
would consider its color only, we turn our view to its 
resemblance with the cube of white marble. By this 
means we accompany our ideas with a kind of reflec- 
tion, of which custom renders us in a great measure 
insensible. A person who desires us to consider the 
figure of a globe of white marble without thinking on 
its color desires an impossibility ; but his meaning is 
that we should consider the color and figure together, 
but still keep in our eye the resemblance to the globe 
of black marble, or that to any other globe of what- 
ever color or substance. 



PART II. 

OF THE IDEAS OF SPACE AND TIME. 



SECTIONS I., II. 

Of the infinite divisibility of space and time. 

It is universally allowed that the capacity of 
the mind is limited and can never attain a full and 
adequate conception of infinity. It is also obvious 
that whatever is capable of being divided in in- 
finitum must consist of an infinite number of parts, 
and that it is impossible to set any bounds to 
the number of parts without setting bounds at the 
same time to the division. It requires scarce any 
induction to conclude from hence that the idea 
which we form of any finite quality is not infinitely 
divisible, but that by proper distinctions and separa- 
tions we may run up this idea to inferior ones which 
will be perfectly simple and indivisible. In rejecting 
the infinite capacity of the mind we suppose it may 
arrive at an end in the division of its ideas ; nor are 
there any possible means of evading the evidence of 
this conclusion. 

It is therefore certain that the imagination reaches 

78 



SECS. I, II.] OF SPACE AND TIME. 79 

a minimum, and may raise up to itself an idea of 
which it cannot conceive any sub-division, and which 
cannot be diminished without a total annihilation. 
When you tell me of the thousandth and ten thou- 
sandth part of a grain of sand, I have a distinct idea 
of these numbers and of their different proportions ; 
but the images which I form in my mind to represent 
the things themselves are nothing different from each 
other, nor inferior to that image by which I represent 
the grain of sand itself which is supposed so vastly to 
exceed them. 

It is an established maxim in metaphysics That 
whatever the mind clearly conceives includes the idea of 
possible existence, or, in other words, that nothing we 
imagine is absolutely impossible. We can form the idea 
of a golden mountain, and from thence conclude that 
such a mountain may actually exist. We can form no 
idea of a mountain without a valley, and therefore 
regard it as impossible. 

Now it is certain we have an idea of extension ; 
for otherwise why do we talk and reason concerning 
it ? It is likewise certain that this idea as conceived 
by the imagination, though divisible into parts or 
inferior ideas, is not infinitely divisible, nor consists 
of an infinite number of parts : for that exceeds the 
comprehension of our limited capacities. Here then 
is an idea of extension which consists of parts or 
inferior ideas that are perfectly indivisible : conse- 
quently this idea implies no contradiction : conse- 
quently it is possible for extension really to exist con- 
formable to it : and consequently all the arguments 
employed against the possibility of mathematical 



So THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART II. 

points are mere scholastic quibbles and unworthy 
of our attention. 

These consequences we may carry one step farther 
and conclude that all the pretended demonstrations 
for the infinite divisibility of extension are equally 
sophistical ; since it is certain these demonstrations 
cannot be just without proving the impossibility of 
mathematical points ; which it is an evident absurdity 
to pretend to. 

All this reasoning takes place with regard to time. 

SECTIONS III., IV. 
Of the other qualities of our ideas of space and time. 

No discovery could have been made more happily 
for deciding all controversies concerning ideas than 
that above mentioned, that impressions always take 
the precedency of them and that every idea with 
which the imagination is furnished first makes its ap- 
pearance in a correspondent impression. These 
latter perceptions are all so clear and evident that 
they admit of no controversy ; though many of our 
ideas are so obscure that it is almost impossible even 
for the mind which forms them to tell exactly their 
nature and composition. Let us apply this principle 
in order to discover farther the nature of our ideas of 
space and time. 

The idea of space is conveyed to the mind by two 
senses, the sight and touch ; nor does anything ever 
appear extended that is not either visible or tangible. 
That compound impression which represents exten- 



SE'CS. Ill, IV.] OF SPACE AND TIME. 8l 

sion consists of several lesser impressions, that are 
indivisible to the eye or feeling and may be called 
impressions of atoms or corpuscles, endowed with 
color and solidity. But this is not all. It is not 
only requisite that these atoms should be colored 
or tangible in order to discover themselves to our 
senses ; it is also necessary we should preserve the 
idea of their color or tangibility in order to compre- 
hend them by our imagination. There is nothing but 
the idea of their color or tangibility which can render 
them conceivable by the mind. Upon the removal 
of the ideas of these sensible qualities they are ut- 
terly annihilated to the thought or imagination. 

As it is from the disposition of visible and tangible 
objects we receive the idea of space, so from the suc- 
cession of ideas and impressions we form the idea of 
time ; nor is it possible for time alone ever to make 
its appearance or be taken notice of by the mind. A 
man in a sound sleep, or strongly occupied with one 
thought, is insensible of time ; and according as his 
perceptions succeed each other with greater or less 
rapidity the same duration appears longer or shorter 
to his imagination. Wherever we have no successive 
perceptions we have no notion of time, even though 
there be a real succession in the objects. From 
these phenomena, as well as from many others, we 
may conclude that time cannot make its appearance 
to the mind either alone or attended with a steady, 
unchangeable object, but is always discovered by 
some perceivable succession of changeable objects. 

In order to know whether any objects which are 
joined in impression be separable in idea, we need 



82 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART II. 

only consider if they be different from each other ; in 
which case it is plain they may be conceived apart. 
The idea of time is not derived from a particular im- 
pression mixed up with others and plainly distinguish- 
able from them, but arises altogether from the manner 
in which impressions appear to the mind, without mak- 
ing one of the number. Five notes played on a flute 
give us the impression and idea of time, though time 
be not a sixth impression which presents itself to the 
hearing or any other of the senses. Nor is it a sixth 
impression which the mind by reflection finds in 
itself. 

The ideas of space and time are therefore no sep- 
arate or distinct ideas, but merely those of the man- 
ner or order in which objects exist. Or, in other 
words, it is impossible to conceive either a vacuum, 
and extension without matter, or a time when there 
was no succession or change in any real existence. 

I know there are some who pretend that the idea 
of duration is applicable in a proper sense to objects 
which are perfectly unchangeable ; and this I take to 
be the common opinion of philosophers as well as of 
the vulgar. But, though it be impossible to show the 
impression from which the idea of time without a 
changeable existence is derived, yet we can easily 
point out those appearances which make us fancy we 
have that idea. For we may observe that there is a 
continual succession of perceptions in our mind ; so 
that, the idea of time being forever present with us, 
when we consider a steadfast object at five o'clock 
and regard the same at six, we are apt to apply to it 
that idea in the same manner as if every moment 



Sec. VI. J OF SPACE AND TIME. 8$ 

were distinguished by a different position or an altera- 
tion of the object. The first and second appearances 
of the object, being compared with the succession of 
our perceptions, seem equally removed as if the ob- 
ject had really changed. To which we may add, 
what experience shows us, that the object was sus- 
ceptible of such a number of changes betwixt these 
appearances ; as also that the unchangeable or rather 
fictitious duration has the same effect upon every 
quality, by increasing or diminishing it, as that suc- 
cession which is obvious to the senses. From these 
three relations we are apt to confound our ideas, and 
imagine we can form the idea of a time and duration 
without any change or succession. 

SECTION VI. 

Of the idea of existence, and of external existence. 

Since we never remember any idea or impression 
without attributing existence to it, the idea of exist- 
ence must either be derived from a distinct impres- 
sion, conjoined with every perception or object of our 
thought, or must be the very same with the idea 
of the perception or object. 

As this dilemma is an evident consequence of the 
principle that every idea arises from a similar impres- 
sion, so our decision betwixt the propositions of the 
dilemma is no more doubtful. So far from there 
being any distinct impression attending every impres- 
sion and every idea, that I do not think there are any 
two distinct impressions which are inseparably con- 



84 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART II. 

joined. Though certain sensations may at one time be 
united, we quickly find they admit of a separation, 
and may be presented apart. And thus, though every 
impression and idea we remember be considered as 
existent, the idea of existence is not derived from any 
particular impression. 

The idea of existence, then, is the very same with 
the idea of what we conceive to be existent. To 
reflect on anything simply, and to reflect on it as ex- 
istent, are nothing different from each other. That 
idea when conjoined with the idea of any object 
makes no addition to it. Whatever we conceive, we 
conceive to be existent. Any idea we please to form 
is the idea of a being ; and the idea of a being is any 
idea we please to form. 

Whoever opposes this, must necessarily point out 
that distinct impression from which the idea of entity 
is derived, and must prove that this impression is in- 
separable from every perception we believe to be 
existent. This we may without hesitation conclude to 
be impossible. A like reasoning will account for the 
idea of external existence. 

Since nothing is ever present to the mind but per- 
ceptions, and since all ideas are derived from something 
antecedently present to the mind, it follows that it is 
impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an 
idea of anything specifically different from ideas and 
impressions. Let us fix our attention out of our- 
selves as much as possible ; let us chase our imagina- 
tion to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the 
universe : we never really advance a step beyond our- 
selves, nor can conceive any kind of existence but 



Sec. VI.] OF SPACE AND TIME. 85 

those perceptions which have appeared in that nar- 
row compass. This is the universe of the imagina- 
tion, nor have we any idea but what is there pro- 
duced. 

The farthest we can go towards a conception of ex- 
ternal objects, when supposed specifically different 
from our perceptions, is to form a relative idea of 
them, without pretending to comprehend the related 
objects. Generally speaking, we do not suppose 
them specifically different, but only attribute to them 
different relations, connections, and durations. But 
of this more fully hereafter.* 

* Part IV., sec. 11. 



PART III. 

OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 



SECTIONS L, II. 

Of knowledge and probability and the idea of cause and 
effect. 

There are *seven different kinds of philosophical 
relation, viz., resemblance, identity, relations of time and 
place, proportion in quantity or number, degrees in any 
quality, contrariety, and causation. These relations 
may be divided into two classes : into such as depend 
entirely on the ideas which we compare together, 
and such as may be changed without any change 
in the ideas. It is from the idea of a triangle that 
we discover the relation of equality which its three 
angles bear to two right ones ; and this relation is in- 
variable, as long as our idea remains the same. On 
the contrary, the relations of contiguity and distance be- 
twixt two objects may be changed merely by an altera- 
tion of their place, without any change on the objects 
themselves or on their ideas ; and the place depends 

* Part I., sec. v. 

86 



SeCS. 1, II.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROl3At3ILJTV. S7 

on a hundred different accidents which cannot be 
foreseen by the mind. It is the same case with 
identity and causation. Two objects, though perfectly 
resembling each other, and even appearing in the same 
place at different times, may be numerically different : 
and as the power by which one object produces 
another is never discoverable merely from their idea, 
it is evident cause and effect are relations of which we 
receive information from experience and not from any 
abstract reasoning or reflection. There is no single 
phenomenon, even the most simple, which can be ac- 
counted for from the qualities of the objects as they 
appear to us, or which we could foresee without the 
help of our memory and experience. 

It appears, therefore, that of these seven philo- 
sophical relations there remain only four which, de- 
pending solely upon ideas, can be the objects of 
knowledge and certainty. These four are resemblance, 
contrariety, degrees in quality, and proportions in quantity 
or number. But as to the other three, which depend 
not upon the idea and may be absent or present even 
while that remains the same, it will be proper to explain 
them more particularly. These three relations are 
identity, the situations in time and place, and causation. 

Of those three relations which depend not upon the 
mere ideas the only one that can be traced beyond 
our senses, and informs us of existences and objects 
which we do not see or feel, is causation. This rela- 
tion, therefore, we shall endeavor to explain fully be- 
fore we leave the subject of the understanding. 

To begin regularly, we must consider the idea of 
causation, and see from what origin it is derived. It is 



88 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

impossible to reason justly without understanding per- 
fectly the idea concerning which we reason ; and it is 
impossible perfectly to understand any idea without 
tracing it up to its origin and examining that primary 
impression from which it arises. The examination of 
the impression bestows a clearness on the idea ; and 
the examination of the idea bestows a like clearness 
on all our reasoning. 

Let us therefore cast our eye on any two objects 
which we call cause and effect, and turn them on 
all sides, in order to find that impression which pro- 
duces an idea of such prodigious consequence. At 
first sight I perceive that 1 must not search for it in 
any of the particular qualities of the objects ; since, 
whichever of these qualities I pitch on, I find some 
object that is not possessed of it and yet falls under 
the denomination of cause or effect. 

The idea, then, of causation must be derived from 
some relation among objects ; and that relation we 
must now endeavor to discover. I find, in the first 
place, that whatever objects are considered as causes 
or effects are contiguous ; and that nothing can operate 
in a time or place which is ever so little removed from 
those of its existence. 

The second relation I shall observe as essential to 
causes and effects is not so universally acknowledged, 
but is liable to some controversy. It is that of 
priority of time in the cause before the effect. 

Having thus discovered or supposed the two rela- 
tions of contiguity and succession to be essential to 
causes and effects, I find I am stopped short, and can 
proceed no farther in considering any single instance 



SECS. I, II.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 89 

of cause and effect. Motion in one body is regarded 
upon impulse as the cause of motion in another. 
When we consider these objects with the utmost at- 
tention we find only that the one body approaches 
the other ; and that the motion of it precedes that of 
the other, but without any sensible interval. It is in 
vain to rack ourselves with farther thought and reflec- 
tion upon this subject. We can go no farther in con- 
sidering this particular instance. 

Should any one leave this instance and pretend to 
define a cause by saying it is something productive of 
another, it is evident he would say nothing. For what 
does he mean by production ? Can he give any defi- 
nition of it that will not be the same with that of 
causation ? If he can ; I desire it may be produced. 
If he cannot ; he here runs in a circle and gives a 
synonymous term instead of a definition. 

Shall we then rest contented with these two relations 
of contiguity and succession, as affording a complete 
idea of causation ? By no means. An object may be 
contiguous and prior to another without being con- 
sidered as its cause. There is a necessary connection 
to be taken into consideration ; and that relation is of 
much greater importance than any of the other two 
above mentioned. 

Here again I turn the object on all sides, in order 
to discover the nature of this necessary connection, 
and find the impression, or impressions, from which its 
idea may be derived. When I cast my eye on the 
known qualities of objects, I immediately discover that 
the relation of cause and effect depends not in the 
least on them. When I consider their relations, I can 



go tHe Philosophy of HUME. [Part ill. 

find none but those of contiguity and succession, 
which I have already regarded as imperfect and un- 
satisfactory. Shall the despair of success make me 
assert that I am here possessed of an idea which is 
not preceded by any similar impression ? This 
would be too strong a proof of levity and inconstancy, 
since the contrary principle has been already so firmly 
established as to admit of no farther doubt, at least 
till we have more fully examined the present difficulty. 

We must, therefore, proceed like those who, being 
in search of anything that lies concealed from them, 
and not finding it in the place they expected, beat 
about all the neighboring fields, without any certain 
view or design, in hopes their good fortune will at 
last guide them to what they search for. It is neces- 
sary for us to leave the direct survey of this question 
concerning the nature of that necessary connection 
which enters into our idea of cause and effect, and 
endeavor to find some other questions the examina- 
tion of which will perhaps afford a hint that may serve 
to clear up the present difficulty. Of these questions 
there occur two, which I shall proceed to examine, 
viz. : 

First, For what reason we pronounce it necessary 
that everything whose existence has a beginning 
should also have a cause ? 

Secondly, Why we conclude that such particular 
causes must necessarily have such particular effects ; 
and what is the nature of that inference we draw from 
the one to the other, and of the belief we repose in it ? 



SEC. III.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 91 

SECTION III. 
Why a cause is always necessary. 

To begin with the first question concerning the 
necessity of a cause : It is a general maxim in 
philosophy that whatever begins to exist must have a 
cause of existence. This is commonly taken for granted 
in all reasonings, without any proof given or de- 
manded. It is supposed to be founded on intuition, 
and to be one of those maxims which, though they 
may be denied with the lips, it is impossible for men in 
their hearts really to doubt of. But all certainty arises 
from the comparison of ideas, and from the discovery 
of such relations as are unalterable so long as the ideas 
continue the same. These relations are resemblance, 
proportions in quantity and number, degrees of any qual- 
ity, and contrariety ; none of which are implied in this 
proposition : Whatever has a beginning has also a cause 
of existence. That proposition therefore is not in- 
tuitively certain. 

But here is an argument which proves at once that 
the foregoing proposition is neither intuitively nor 
demonstrably certain. As all distinct ideas are sepa- 
rable from each other, and as the ideas of cause and 
effect are evidently distinct, it will be easy for us to 
conceive any object to be non-existent this moment 
and existent the next, without conjoining to it the 
distinct idea of a cause or productive principle. The 
separation, therefore, of the idea of a cause from that 
sf a beginning of existence is plainly possible for the 



Q2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

imagination ; and consequently the actual separation 
of these objects is so far possible that it implies no con- 
tradiction nor absurdity, and is therefore incapable of 
being refuted by any reasoning from mere ideas ; with- 
out which it is impossible to demonstrate the necessity 
of a cause. 

Accordingly we shall find upon examination that 
every demonstration which has been produced for the 
necessity of a cause is fallacious and sophistical. All 
the points of time and place, * say some philosophers, 
in which we can suppose any object to begin to exist, 
are in themselves equal ; and unless there be some 
cause which is peculiar to one time and to one place, 
and which by that means determines and fixes the ex- 
istence, it must remain in eternal suspense ; and the 
object can never begin to be, for want of something to 
fix its beginning. But I ask, Is there any more diffi- 
culty in supposing the time and place to be fixed 
without a cause than to suppose the existence to be 
determined in that manner ? The first question that 
occurs on this subject is always whether the object 
shall exist or not. The next, when and where it shall 
begin to exist. If the removal of a cause be intuitively 
absurd in the one case, it must be so in the other : 
and if that absurdity be not clear without a proof in 
the one case, it will equally require one in the other. 
The absurdity, then, of the one supposition can never 
be a proof of that of the other ; since they are both 
upon the same footing and must stand or fall by the 
same reasoning. 

The second argument f which I find used on this 
* Mr. Hobbes. \ Dr. Clarke and others. 



SEC. III.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY, 93 

head labors under an equal difficulty. Everything, it 
is said, must have a cause ; for if anything wanted a 
cause it would produce itself', that is, exist before it 
existed ; which is impossible. But this reasoning is 
plainly unconclusive ; because it supposes that in our 
denial of a cause we still grant what we expressly 
deny, viz. : that there must be a cause ; which therefore 
is taken to be the object itself ; and that, no doubt, 
is an evident contradiction. But to say that any- 
thing is produced, or, to express myself more properly, 
comes into existence, without a cause, is not to affirm 
that it is itself its own cause ; but on the contrary, in 
excluding all external causes, excludes a fortiori the 
thing itself which is created. An object that exists 
absolutely without any cause certainly is not its own 
cause ; and when you assert that the one follows from 
the other you suppose the very point in question, and 
take it for granted that it is utterly impossible any- 
thing can ever begin to exist without a cause, but that 
upon the exclusion of one productive principle we 
must still have recourse to another. 

It is exactly the same case with the * third argu- 
ment which has been employed to demonstrate the 
necessity of a cause. Whatever is produced without 
any cause is produced by nothing ; or, in other words, 
has nothing for its cause. But nothing can never be 
a cause, no more than it can be something, or equal 
to two right angles. By the same intuition that we 
perceive nothing not to be equal to two right angles, 
or not to be something, we perceive that it can never 

*Mr. Locke. 



94 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

be a cause ; and consequently must perceive that 
every object has a real cause of its existence. 

I believe it will not be necessary to employ many 
words in showing the weakness of this argument, after 
what I have said of the foregoing. They are all of 
them founded on the same fallacy, and are derived 
from the same turn of thought. It is sufficient only 
to observe that when we exclude all causes we really 
do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the 
object itself to be the causes of the existence ; and 
consequently can draw no argument from the absurd- 
ity of these suppositions to prove the absurdity of that 
exclusion. If everything must have a cause, it fol- 
lows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must 
accept of the object itself or of nothing as causes. 
But it is the very point in question, whether every- 
thing must have a cause or not ; and therefore, ac- 
cording to all just reasoning, it ought never to be 
taken for granted. 

They are still more frivolous who say that every 
effect must have a cause, because it is implied in the 
very idea of effect. Every effect necessarily presup- 
poses a cause ; effect being a relative term, of which 
cause is the correlative. But this does not prove 
that every being must be preceded by a cause ; no 
more than it follows because every husband must 
have a wife that therefore every man must be married. 
The true state of the question is, whether every object 
which begins to exist must owe its existence to a 
cause ; and this I assert to be neither intuitively nor 
demonstratively certain, and hope to have proved it 
sufficiently by the foregoing arguments. 



SECS. IV, V.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 95 

Since it is not from knowledge or any scientific 
reasoning that we derive the opinion of the necessity 
of a cause to every new production, that opinion must 
necessarily arise from observation and experience. 
The next question, then, should naturally be, how ex- 
perience gives rise to such a principle ? But as I find it 
will be more convenient to sink this question in the 
following : Why we conclude that such particular 
causes must necessarily have such particular effects, and 
why we form an inference from one to another ? we 
shall make that the subject of our future enquiry. It 
will, perhaps, be found in the end that the same 
answer will serve for both questions. 



SECTIONS IV., V. 

Of the component parts of our reasonings concerning 
cause and effect, and of the impressions of the senses 
and memory. 

Though the mind in its reasonings from causes or 
effects carries its view beyond those objects which it 
sees or remembers, it must never lose sight of them 
entirely, nor reason merely upon its own ideas with- 
out some mixture of impressions, or at least of ideas 
of the memory which are equivalent to impressions. 
When we infer effects from causes, we must establish 
the existence of these causes ; which we have only two 
ways of doing : either by an immediate* perception of 
our memory or senses, or by an inference from other 
causes ; which causes again we must ascertain in the 
same manner, either by a present impression, or by an 



96 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

inference from their causes, and so on, till we arrive at 
some object which we see or remember. It is impossi- 
ble for us to carry on our inferences in infinitum ; and 
the only thing that can stop them is an impression of 
the memory or senses, beyond which there is no room 
for doubt or enquiry. 

Here therefore we have three things to explain, viz.: 
First, the original impression. Secondly, the transi- 
tion to the idea of the connected cause or effect. 
Thirdly, the nature and qualities of that idea. 

[1] As to those impressions which arise from the 
senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly 
inexplicable by human reason, and it will always be 
impossible to decide with certainty whether they 
arise immediately from the object, or are produced by 
the creative power of the mind, or are derived from 
the author of our being. Nor is such a question any 
way material to our present purpose. "We may draw 
inferences from the coherence of our perceptions, 
whether they be true or false ; whether they represent 
nature justly, or be mere illusions of the senses. 

When we search for the characteristic which dis- 
tinguishes the memory from the imagination. Ave must 
immediately perceive that it cannot lie in the simple 
ideas it presents to us ; since both these faculties bor- 
row their simple ideas from the impressions, and can 
never go beyond these original perceptions. These 
faculties are as little distinguished from each other by 
the arrangement of their complex ideas ; it being im- 
possible to recall the past impressions in order to 
compare them with our present ideas and see whether 
their arrangement be exactly similar. Since therefore 



SEC. VI.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 97 

the memory is known neither by the order of its 
complex ideas nor the nature of its simple ones, it 
follows that the difference betwixt it and the imagi- 
nation lies in its superior force and vivacity. A man 
may indulge his fancy in feigning any past scene of 
adventures ; nor would there be any possibility of dis- 
tinguishing this from a remembrance of a like kind, 
were not the ideas of the imagination fainter and more 
obscure. 

Thus it appears that the belief ox assent, which always 
attends the memory and senses, is nothing but the 
vivacity of those perceptions they present ; and that 
this alone distinguishes them from the imagination. 
To believe is in this case to feel an immediate impres- 
sion of the senses, or a repetition of that impression 
in the memory. It is merely the force and liveliness 
of the perception which constitutes the first act of 
the judgment, and lays the foundation of that reason- 
ing which we build upon it when we trace the rela- 
tion of cause and effect. 

SECTION VI. 

[2] Of the inference from the impression to the idea. 

It is easy to observe that, in tracing this relation, 
the inference we draw from cause to effect is not de- 
rived merely from a survey of these particular objects 
and from such a penetration into their essences as 
may discover the dependence of the one upon the 
other. There is no object which implies the exist- 
ence of any other if we consider these objects in 



98 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

themselves and never look beyond the ideas which 
we form of them. Such an inference would amount 
to knowledge, and would imply the absolute contradic- 
tion and impossibility of conceiving anything differ- 
ent. But, as all distinct ideas are separable, it is evi- 
dent there can be no impossibility of that kind. 
When we pass from a present impression to the idea 
of any object, we might possibly have separated the 
idea from the impression, and have substituted any 
other idea in its room. 

It is therefore by experience only that we can infer 
the existence of one object from that of another. 
Thus we remember to have seen that species of object 
we call flame, and to have felt that species of sensa- 
tion we call heat. We likewise call to mind their con- 
stant conjunction in all past instances. Without any 
farther ceremony, we call the one cause and the other 
effect, and infer the existence of the one from that of 
the other. In all those instances from which we learn 
the conjunction of particular causes and effects, both 
the causes and effects have been perceived by the 
senses and are remembered : but in all cases wherein 
we reason concerning them there is only one per- 
ceived or remembered, and the other is supplied in 
conformity to our past experience. 

Thus in advancing we have insensibly discovered a 
new relation betwixt cause and effect when we least 
expected it and were entirely employed upon another 
subject. This relation is their constant conjunc- 
tion. Contiguity and succession are not sufficient to 
make us pronounce any two objects to be cause and 
effect, unless we perceive that these two relations are 



SEC. VI.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 99 

preserved in several instances. We may now see the 
advantage of quitting the direct survey of this rela- 
tion in order to discover the nature of that necessary 
connection which makes so essential a part of it. Hav- 
ing found that after the discovery of the constant 
conjunction of any objects we always draw an infer- 
ence from one object to another, we shall now examine 
the nature of that inference and of the transition 
from the impression to the idea. Perhaps it will ap- 
pear in the end that the necessary connection depends 
on the inference, instead of the inference's depending 
on the necessary connection. 

Since it appears that the transition from an impress 
sion present to the memory or senses to the idea of an 
object which we call cause or effect is founded on 
past experience, and on our remembrance of their con- 
stant conjunction, the next question is, Whether experi- 
ence produces the idea by means of the understanding 
or of the imagination ; whether we are determined by 
reason to make the transition, or by a certain associa^ 
tion and relation of perceptions ? If reason deter- 
mined us, it would proceed upon that principle that 
instances of which ive have had no experience must 
resemble those of which we have had experience, and that 
the course of nature continues always uniformly the same. 

The arguments upon which such a proposition may 
be supposed to be founded must be derived either 
from knowledge ox probability. Our foregoing method 
of reasoning will easily convince us that there can be 
no demonstrative arguments to prove that those instances 
of which we have had no experience resemble those of 
wftich we have had experience. We can at least con- 



IOO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART III. 

ceive a change in the course of nature ; which suffi- 
ciently proves that such a change is not absolutely 
impossible. To form a clear idea of anything is an 
undeniable argument for its possibility, and is alone a 
refutation of any pretended demonstration against it. 

Probability is founded on the presumption of a re- 
semblance betwixt those objects of which we have had 
experience and those of which we have had none ; 
and therefore it is impossible this presumption can 
arise from probability. The same principle cannot be 
both the cause and effect of another ; and this is, 
perhaps, the only proposition concerning that relation 
which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. 

Thus not only our reason fails us in the discovery 
of the ultimate connection of causes and effects, but 
even after experience has informed us of their constant 
conjunction it is impossible for us to satisfy ourselves 
by our reason why we should extend that experience 
beyond those particular instances which have fallen 
under our observation. We suppose, but are never 
able to prove, that there must be a resemblance betwixt 
those objects of which we have had experience and 
those which lie beyond the reach of our discovery. 

When the mind, therefore, passes from the idea or 
impression of one object to the idea or belief of an- 
other, it is not determined by reason, but by certain 
principles which associate together the ideas of these 
objects and unite them in the imagination. Had 
ideas no more union in the fancy than objects seem 
to have to the understanding, we could never draw 
any inference from causes to effects, nor repose belief 
in any matter of fact. The inference, therefore, 



SEC. VII.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. IOI 

depends solely on the union of ideas. When the 
impression of one object becomes present to us, we 
immediately form an idea of its usual attendant ; and 
consequently we may establish this as one part of the 
definition of an opinion or belief, that it is an idea 
related to or associated with a present impression. 

Thus, though causation be ^philosophical relation, as 
implying contiguity, succession, and constant conjunc- 
tion, yet it is only so far as it is a natural relation, and 
produces an union among our ideas, that we are unable 
to reason upon it, or draw any inference from it. 



SECTION VII. 

[3] Of the nature of the idea or belief. 

It is evident that all reasonings from causes or 
effects terminate in conclusions concerning matter of 
fact ; that is, concerning the existence of objects or 
of their qualities. It is also evident that the idea of 
existence is nothing different from the idea of any 
object, and that when after the simple conception of 
anything we would conceive it as existent, we in 
reality make no addition to or alteration on our first 
idea. Thus, when we affirm that God is existent, we 
simply form the idea of such a being as he is repre- 
sented to us ; nor is the existence which we attribute 
to him conceived by a particular idea which we join 
to the idea of his other qualities and can again sepa- 
rate and distinguish from them. But I go farther ; 
and, not content with asserting that the conception of 



102 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART III. 

the existence of any object is no addition to the simple 
conception of it, I likewise maintain that the belief 
of the existence joins no new ideas to those which 
compose the idea of the object. When I think of 
God, when I think of him as existent, and when I 
believe him to be existent, my idea of him neither 
increases nor diminishes. But, as it is certain there is 
a great difference betwixt the simple conception of 
the existence of an object and the belief of it, and as 
this difference lies not in the parts or composition of 
the idea which we conceive, it follows that it must lie 
in the manner in which we conceive it. 

I therefore ask, Wherein consists the difference 
betwixt believing and disbelieving any proposition ? 
The answer is easy with regard to propositions that 
are proved by intuition or demonstration. In that 
case, the person who assents not only conceives the 
ideas according to the proposition, but is necessarily 
determined to conceive them in that particular 
manner, either immediately or by the interposition of 
other ideas. Whatever is absurd is unintelligible ; 
nor is it possible for the imagination to conceive any- 
thing contrary to a demonstration. But, as in reason- 
ings from causation and concerning matters of fact 
this absolute necessity cannot take place, and the 
imagination is free to conceive both sides of the ques- 
tion, I still ask, Wherein consists the difference betwixt 
incredulity and belief? since in both cases the con- 
ception of the idea is equally possible and requisite. 

It is confessed that in all cases wherein we dissent 
from any person we conceive both sides of the ques- 
tion ; but, as we can believe only one, it evidently 



Sec. VII.] of knowledge and probability. 103 

follows that the belief must make some difference 
betwixt that conception to which we assent and that 
from which we dissent. We may mingle, and unite, 
and separate, and confound, and vary our ideas in a 
hundred different ways ; but, until there appears some 
principle which fixes one of these different situations, 
we have in reality no opinion : and this principle, as 
it plainly makes no addition to our precedent ideas, 
can only change the manner of our conceiving them. 

When you would any way vary the idea of a par- 
ticular object, you can only increase or diminish its 
force and vivacity. If you make any other change 
on it, it represents a different object or impression. 
The case is the same as in colors. A particular shade 
of any color may acquire a new degree of liveliness 
or brightness without any other variation. But when 
you produce any other variation, it is no longer the 
same shade or color. So that, as belief does nothing 
but vary the manner in which we conceive any object, 
it can only bestow on our ideas an additional force 
and vivacity. An opinion, therefore, or belief may 
be most accurately defined, A lively idea related 

TO OR ASSOCIATED WITH A PRESENT IMPRESSION. 

Here are the heads of those arguments which lead 
us to this conclusion. When we infer the existence 
of an object from that of others, some object must 
always be present either to the memory or senses in 
order to be the foundation of our reasoning ; since 
the mind cannot run up with its inferences in in- 
finitum. Reason can never satisfy us that the exist- 
ence of any one object does ever imply that of an- 
other ; so that when we pass from the impression of 



104 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART III. 

one to the idea or belief of another, we are not 
determined by reason, but by custom or a principle of 
association. But belief is somewhat more than a 
simple idea. It is a particular manner of forming an 
idea : and as the same idea can only be varied by a 
variation of its degrees of force and vivacity, it 
follows, upon the whole, that belief is a lively idea 
produced by a relation to a present impression, 
according to the foregoing definition. 



SECTION VIII. 

Of the causes of belief. 

I would willingly establish it as a general maxim 
in the science of human nature that when any im- 
pression becomes present to us, it not only transports the 
mind to such ideas as are related to it, but likewise com- 
municates to them a share of its force and vivacity. 

Upon the appearance of the picture of an absent 
friend, our idea of him is evidently enlivened by the 
resemblance, and every passion which that idea occa- 
sions, whether of joy or sorrow, acquires new force 
and vigor. 

The thinking on any object readily transports the 
mind to what is contiguous; but it is only the actual 
presence of an object that transports it with a superior 
vivacity. When I am a few miles from home, what- 
ever relates to it touches me more nearly than when 
I am two hundred leagues distant ; though even at 
that distance the reflecting on anything in the neigh- 



Sec. VIII.] of knowledge and probability. 105 

borhood of my friends and family naturally produces 
an idea of them. 

No one can doubt but causation has the same in- 
fluence as the other two relations of resemblance and 
contiguity. The objects it presents are fixed and un- 
alterable. The impressions of the memory never 
change in any considerable degree ; and each impres- 
sion draws along with it a precise idea, which takes 
its place in the imagination as something solid and 
real, certain and invariable. The thought is always 
determined to pass from the impression to the idea, 
and from that particular impression to that particular 
idea, without any choice or hesitation. 

Contiguity and resemblance have an effect much 
inferior to causation ; but still have some effect, and 
augment the conviction of any opinion and the vivac- 
ity of any conception. 

Thus all probable reasoning is nothing but a species 
of sensation. It is not solely in poetry and music we 
must follow our taste and sentiment, but likewise in 
philosophy. When I am convinced of any principle, 
it is only an idea which strikes more strongly upon 
me. When I give the preference to one set of argu- 
ments above another, I do nothing but decide from 
my feeling concerning the superiority of their influ- 
ence. Objects have no discoverable connection to- 
gether ; nor is it from any other principle but custom 
operating upon the imagination that we can draw any 
inference from the appearance of one to the existence 
of another. 



106 The philosophy of Hume. [Part III. 

SECTIONS XL, XII., XIII. 

Of probability. 

But, in order to bestow on this system its full force 
and evidence, we must carry our eye from it a moment 
to consider its consequences, and explain from the 
same principles some other species of reasoning which 
are derived from the same origin. 

Those philosophers who have divided human reason 
into knoivledge and probability, and have defined the 
first to be that evidence which arises from the compari- 
son of ideas, are obliged to comprehend all our argu- 
ments from causes or effects under the general term 
of probability. But though every one be free to use 
his terms in what sense he pleases, and accordingly 
in the precedent part of this discourse I have fol- 
lowed this method of expression ; it is however cer- 
tain that in common discourse we readily affirm that 
many arguments from causation exceed probability 
and may be received as a superior kind of evidence. 
One would appear ridiculous who would say that it 
is only probable the sun will rise to-morrow or that 
all men must die ; though it is plain we have no fur- 
ther assurance of these facts than what experience 
affords us. For this reason, it would perhaps be more 
convenient, in order at once to preserve the common 
signification of words and mark the several degrees 
of evidence, to distinguish human reason into three 
kinds, viz., that from knowledge, from proof s, and frotn 



Secs.XI, XII, XIII.] KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 10/ 

probabilities. By knowledge I mean the assurance 
arising from the comparison of ideas. By proofs, 
those arguments which are derived from the relation 
of cause and effect, and which are entirely free from 
doubt and uncertainty. By probability, that evidence 
which is still attended with uncertainty. It is this 
last species of reasoning I proceed to examine. 

It is commonly allowed by philosophers that what 
the vulgar call chance is nothing but a secret and 
concealed cause. That species of probability, there- 
fore, is what we must chiefly examine. 

The probabilities of causes are of several kinds, but 
are all derived from the same origin, viz., the associa- 
tion of ideas to a present impression. As the habit 
which produces the association arises from the fre- 
quent conjunction of objects, it must arrive at its per- 
fection by degrees, and must acquire new force from 
each instance that falls under our observation. The 
first instance has little or no force ; the second makes 
some addition to it ; the third becomes still more 
sensible : and it is by these slow steps that our judg- 
ment arrives at a full assurance. But before it attains 
this pitch of perfection it passes through several infe- 
rior degrees, and in all of them is only to be esteemed 
a presumption or probability. The gradation, there- 
fore, from probabilities to proofs is in many cases 
insensible ; and the difference betwixt these 'kinds of 
evidence is more easily perceived in the remote de- 
grees than in the near and contiguous. 

But, secondly, when in considering past experiments 
we find them of a contrary nature, the habit or deter- 
mination of the mind to transfer the past to the future 



108 TtlE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART III. 

and expect for the future the same train of objects to 
which we have been accustomed, though full and per- 
fect in itself, presents us with no steady object, but 
offers us a number of disagreeing images in a certain 
order and proportion. The first impulse, therefore, is 
here broke into pieces, and diffuses itself over all 
those images, of which each partakes an equal share 
of that force and vivacity that is derived from the im- 
pulse. Any of these past events may happen again ; 
and we judge that when they do happen they will be 
mixed in the same proportion as in the past. 

Suppose, for instance, I have found by long obser- 
vation that, of twenty ships which go to sea, only 
nineteen return. Suppose I see at present twenty 
ships that leave the port : I transfer my past experi- 
ence to the future, and represent to myself nineteen 
of these ships as returning in safety, and one as per- 
ishing. Concerning this there can be no difficulty. 
But, as we frequently run over those several ideas of 
past events in order to form a judgment concerning 
one single event which appears uncertain, this con- 
sideration must change the first form of our ideas, 
and draw together the divided images presented by 
experience ; since it is to it we refer the determina- 
tion of that particular event upon which we reason. 
Many of these images are supposed to concur, and a 
superior number to concur on one side. These agree- 
ing images unite together and render the idea more 
strong and lively, not only than a mere fiction of the 
imagination, but also than any idea which is sup- 
ported by a lesser number of experiments. Each new 
experiment is as a new stroke of the pencil, which be- 



SECS. XI, XII, XIII.] KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 1 6Q 

stows an additional vivacity on the colors without 
either multiplying or enlarging the figure. 

This is the manner in which past experiments con- 
cur when they are transferred to any future event. 
As to the manner of their opposition, it is evident that, 
as the contrary views are incompatible with each other 
and it is impossible the object can at once exist con- 
formable to both of them, their influence becomes mu- 
tually destructive, and the mind is determined to the 
superior only with that force which remains after sub- 
tracting the inferior. 

But, beside these two species of probability which 
are derived from an imperfect experience and from 
contrary causes, there is a third, arising from Analogy 
which differs from them in some material circum- 
stances. According to the hypothesis above explained 
all kinds of reasoning from causes or effects are 
founded on two particulars, viz., the constant con- 
junction of any two objects in all past experience, 
and the resemblance of a present object to any one 
of them. The effect of these two particulars is that 
the present object invigorates and enlivens the imagi- 
nation ; and the resemblance along with the constant 
union conveys this force and vivacity to the related 
idea ; which we are therefore said to believe, or assent 
to. If you weaken either the union or resemblance, 
you weaken the principle of transition, and, of conse- 
quence, that belief which arises from it. The vivacity 
of the first impression cannot be fully conveyed to 
the related idea, either where the conjunction of their 
objects is not constant, or where the present impres- 
sion does not perfectly resemble any of those whose 



1 to THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part HI. 

union we are accustomed to observe. In those prob- 
abilities of chance and causes above explained it is 
the constancy of the union which is diminished ; and 
in the probability derived from analogy, it is the re- 
semblance only which is affected. Without some 
degree of resemblance, as well as union, it is impos- 
sible there can be any reasoning : but, as this re- 
semblance admits of many different degrees, the 
reasoning becomes proportionably more or less firm 
and certain. An experiment loses of its force when 
transferred to instances which are not exactly re- 
sembling ; though it is evident it may still retain as 
much as may be the foundation of probability, as long 
as there is any resemblance remaining. 

Thus it appears, upon the whole, that every kind of 
opinion or judgment which amounts not to knowl- 
edge is derived entirely from the force and vivacity 
of the perception, and that these qualities constitute 
in the mind what we call the belief of the existence 
of any object. This force and this vivacity are most 
conspicuous in the memory ; and therefore our con- 
fidence in the veracity of that faculty is the greatest 
imaginable, and equals in many respects the assurance 
of a demonstration. The next degree of these quali- 
ties is that derived from the relation of cause and 
effect ; and this too is very great, especially when the 
conjunction is found by experience to be perfectly 
constant, and when the object which is present to 
us exactly resembles those of which we have had 
experience. But below this degree of evidence there 
are many others, which have an influence on the 
passions and imagination proportioned to that degree 



Sec. XIV.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. Ill 

of force and vivacity which they communicate to the 
ideas. It is by habit we make the transition from 
cause to effect ; and i. is from some present impres- 
sion we borrow that vivacity which we diffuse over 
the correlative idea. But when we have not observed 
a sufficient number of instances to produce a strong 
habit ; or when these instances are contrary to each 
other ; or when the resemblance is not exact ; or 
the present impression is faint and obscure ; or the 
experience in some measure obliterated from the 
memory ; or the connection dependent on a long 
chain of objects ; or the inference derived from gen- 
eral rules, and yet not conformable to them : In all 
these cases the evidence diminishes by the diminution 
of the force and intenseness of the idea. This there- 
fore is the nature of the judgment and probability. 

SECTION XIV. 

Of the idea of necessary connection.* 

Having thus explained the manner in which we 
reason beyond our immediate impressions, and conclude 
that such particular causes must have such particular 
effects, we must now return upon our footsteps to 
examine that question which f first occurred to us, 
and which we dropped in our way, viz., What is our 
idea of necessity when we say that two objects are neces- 
sarily connected together! Upon this head I repeat 

*[This section and Sections V. and VI. of Part I. are inserted 
in full. — En.] 
j- Section IJ. 



112 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART III. 



what I have often had occasion to observe, that, as we 
have no idea that is not derived from an impression, 
we must find some impression that gives rise to this 
idea of necessity, if we assert we have really such an 
idea. In order to this, I consider in what objects 
necessity is commonly supposed to lie ; and, finding 
that it is always ascribed to causes and effects, I 
turn my eye to two objects supposed to be placed in 
that relation, and examine them in all the situations 
of which they are susceptible. I immediately per- 
ceive that they are contiguous in time and place and 
that the object we call cause precedes the other we 
call effect. In no one instance can I go any farther, 
nor is it possible for me to discover any third relation 
betwixt these objects. I therefore enlarge my view 
to comprehend several instances where I find like 
objects always existing in like relations of contiguity 
and succession. At first sight this seems to serve but 
little to my purpose. The reflection on several in- 
stances only repeats the same objects, and therefore 
can never give rise to a new idea. But upon farther 
inquiry I find that the repetition is not in every par- 
ticular the same, but produces a new impression, and 
by that means the idea which I at present examine. 
For, after a frequent repetition, I find that upon the 
appearance of one of the objects the mind is de- 
termined by custom to consider its usual attendant, 
and to consider it in a stronger light upon account of 
its relation to the first object. It is this impression, 
then, or determination, which affords me the idea of 
necessity. 

I doubt not but these consequences will at first 



Sec. XIV.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 113 

sight be received without difficulty, as being evident 
deductions from principles which we have already- 
established and which we have often employed in 
our reasonings. This evidence, both in the first prin- 
ciples and in the deductions, may seduce us unwarily 
into the conclusion, and make us imagine it contains 
nothing extraordinary nor worthy of our curiosity. 
But, though such an inadvertence may facilitate the 
reception of this reasoning, it will make it be the 
more easily forgot ; for which reason I think it proper 
to give warning that I have just now examined one 
of the most sublime questions in philosophy, viz., that 
concerning the poiver and efficacy of causes ; where all 
the sciences seem so much interested. Such a warn- 
ing will naturally rouse up the attention of the reader 
and make him desire a more full account of my doc- 
trine, as well as of the arguments on which it is 
founded. This request is so reasonable that I can- 
not refuse complying with it ; especially as I am 
hopeful that these principles, the more they are ex- 
amined, will acquire the more force and evidence. 

There is no question which, on account of its 
importance as well as difficulty, has caused more dis- 
putes both among ancient and modern philosophers 
than this concerning the efficacy of causes, or that 
quality which makes them be followed by their effects. 
But, before they entered upon these disputes, methinks 
it would not have been improper to have examined 
what idea we have of that efficacy which is the sub- 
ject of the controversy. This is what I find princi- 
pally wanting in their reasonings, and what I shall 
here endeavor to supply. 



114 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

I begin with observing that the terms of efficacy, 
agency, power, force, energy, necessity, connection, and 
productive quality are all nearly synonymous ; and 
therefore it is an absurdity to employ any of them in de- 
fining the rest. By this observation we reject at once 
all the vulgar definitions which philosophers have 
given of power and efficacy ; and, instead of searching 
for the idea in these definitions, must look for it in 
the impressions from which it is originally derived. If 
it be a compound idea, it must arise from compound 
impressions; if simple, from simple impressions. 

I believe the most general and most popular ex- 
plication of this matter is to say *that, finding from 
experience that there are several new productions in 
matter, such as the motions and variations of body, 
and concluding that there must somewhere be a power 
capable of producing them, we arrive at last by this 
reasoning at the idea of power and efficacy. But, to 
be convinced that this explication is more popular 
than philosophical, we need but reflect on two very 
obvious principles. First, that reason alone can 
never give rise to any original idea: and secondly, that 
reason, as distinguished from experience, can never 
make us conclude that a cause or productive quality 
is absolutely requisite to every beginning of existence. 
Both these considerations have been sufficiently ex- 
plained ; and therefore shall not at present be any 
farther insisted on. 

I shall only infer from them that, since reason can 
never give rise to the idea of efficacy, that idea must be 

* See Mr. Locke : chapter of power, 



Sec. XIV.] of knowledge and probability. 115 

derived from experience, and from some particular in- 
stances of this efficacy which make their passage into 
the mind by the common channels of sensation or re- 
flection. Ideas always represent their objects or im- 
pressions ; and, vice versa, there are some objects 
necessary to give rise to every idea. If we pretend, 
therefore, to have any just idea of this efficacy, we 
must produce some instance wherein the efficacy is 
plainly discoverable to the mind, and its operations 
obvious to our consciousness or sensation. By the 
refusal of this we acknowledge that the idea is im- 
possible and imaginary, since the principle of innate 
ideas, which alone can save us from this dilemma, has 
been already refuted and is now almost universally 
rejected in the learned world. Our present business, 
then, must be to find some natural production where 
the operation and efficacy of a cause can be clearly 
conceived and comprehended by the mind without 
any danger of obscurity or mistake. 

In this research we meet with very little encourage- 
ment from that prodigious diversity which is found in 
the opinions of those philosophers who have pre- 
tended to explain the secret force and energy of 
causes.* There are some who maintain that bodies 
operate by their substantial form ; others, by their ac- 
cidents or qualities ; several, by their matter and 
form ; some, by their form and accidents ; others, by 
certain virtues and faculties distinct from all this. 
All these sentiments again are mixed and varied in 
a thousand different ways ; and form a strong pre- 



* See farther Malbranche, Book VI., part 11., chap, iii., anci 
the illustrations upon it, 



Il6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

sumption that none of them have any solidity or evi- 
dence, and that the supposition of an efficacy in any 
of the known qualities of matter is entirely without 
foundation. This presumption must increase upon 
us when we consider that these principles of sub- 
stantial forms, and accidents, and faculties are not in 
reality any of the known properties of bodies, but are 
perfectly unintelligible and inexplicable. For it is 
evident philosophers would never have had recourse 
to such obscure and uncertain principles had they 
met with any satisfaction in such as are clear and in- 
telligible ; especially in such an affair as this, which 
must be an object of the simplest understanding, if 
not of the senses. Upon the whole, we may conclude 
that it is impossible in any one instance to show the 
principle in which the force and agency of a cause is 
placed, and that the most refined and most vulgar 
understandings are equally at a loss in this particular. 
If any one think proper to refute this assertion, he 
need not put himself to the trouble of inventing any 
long reasonings ; but may at once show us an instance 
of a cause where we discover the power or operating 
principle. This defiance we are obliged frequently to 
make use of, as being almost the only means of prov- 
ing a negative in philosophy. 

The small success which has been met with in all 
the attempts to fix this power has at last obliged phi- 
losophers to conclude that the ultimate force and 
efficacy of nature is perfectly unknown to us, and that 
it is in vain we search for it in all the known qualities 
of matter. In this opinion they are almost unanimous ; 
and it is only in the inference they draw from it that 



Sec. XIV.] of knowledge and probability. 117 

they discover any difference in their sentiments. For 
some of them, as the Cartesians in particular, having 
established it as a p r inciple that we are perfectly ac- 
quainted with the essence of matter, have very nat- 
urally inferred that it is endowed with no efficacy, 
and that it is impossible for it of itself to communi- 
cate motion, or produce any of those effects which we 
ascribe to it. As the essence of matter consists in 
extension, and as extension implies, not actual motion, 
but only mobility, they conclude that the energy 
which produces the motion cannot lie in the ex- 
tension. 

This conclusion leads them into another, which 
they regard as perfectly unavoidable. Matter, say 
they, is in itself entirely unactive, and deprived of any 
power by which it may produce, or continue, or com- 
municate motion : but, since these effects are evident 
to our senses, and since the power that produces them 
must be placed somewhere, it must lie in the Deity, 
or that divine being who contains in his nature all 
excellency and perfection. It is the deity, therefore, 
who is the prime mover of the universe, and who not 
only first created matter and gave it its original im- 
pulse, but likewise by a continued exertion of omnipo- 
tence supports its existence, and successively bestows 
on it all those motions, and configurations, and qualities 
with which it is endowed. 

This opinion is certainly very curious and well 
worth our attention ; but it will appear superfluous to 
examine it in this place, if we reflect a moment on our 
present purpose in taking notice of it. We have es- 
tablished it as a principle that, as all ideas are derived 



I 1 8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

from impressions, or some precedent perceptions, it is 
impossible we can have any idea of power and efficacy, 
unless some instances can be produced wherein this 
power is perceived to exert itself. Now, as these in- 
stances can never be discovered in body, the Cartesians, 
proceeding upon their principle of innate ideas, have 
had recourse to a supreme spirit or deity, whom they 
consider as the only active being in the universe and 
as the immediate cause of every alteration in matter. 
But, the principle of innate ideas being allowed to be 
false, it follows that the supposition of a deity can 
serve us in no stead in accounting for that idea of 
agency which we search for in vain in all the objects 
which are presented to our senses or which we are 
internally conscious of in our own minds. For, if 
every idea be derived from an impression, the idea of 
a deity proceeds from the same origin ; and, if no im- 
pression, either of sensation or reflection, implies any 
force or efficacy, it is equally impossible to discover 
or even imagine any such active principle in the deity. 
Since these philosophers, therefore, have concluded, 
that matter cannot be endowed with any efficacious 
principle, because it is impossible to discover in it 
such a principle, the same course of reasoning should 
determine them to exclude it from the supreme being. 
Or, if they esteem that opinion absurd and impious, 
as it really is, I shall tell them how they may avoid it ; 
and that is by concluding from the very first that 
they have no adequate idea of power or efficacy in any 
object ; since neither in body nor spirit, neither in 
superior nor inferior natures, are they able to discover 
one single instance of it, 



Sec. XIV/ OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 1 1 9 

The same conclusion is unavoidable upon the hy- 
pothesis of those who maintain the efficacy of second 
causes, and attribute a derivative, but a real, power 
and energy to matter. For, as they confess that this 
energy lies not in any of the known qualities of 
matter, the difficulty still remains concerning the ori- 
gin of its idea. If we have really an idea of power, we 
may attribute power to an unknown quality : but, as it 
is impossible that that idea can be derived from such 
a quality, and as there is nothing in known qualities 
which can produce it, it follows that we deceive our- 
selves when we imagine we are possessed of any idea 
of this kind, after the manner we commonly under- 
stand it. All ideas are derived from, and represent, 
impressions. We never have any impression that con- 
tains any power or efficacy. We never therefore have 
any idea of power. 

Some have asserted that we feel an energy or 
power in our mind ; and that, having in this manner 
acquired the idea of power, we transfer that quality 
to matter, where we are not able immediately to dis- 
cover it. The motions of our body and the thoughts 
and sentiments of our mind (say they) obey the will ; 
nor do we seek any farther to acquire a just notion of 
force or power. But, to convince us how fallacious 
this reasoning is, we need only consider that the will, 
being here considered as a cause, has no more a 
discoverable connection with its effects than any 
material cause has with its proper effect. So far 
from perceiving the connection betwixt an act of voli- 
tion and a motion of the body, it is allowed that no 
effect is more inexplicable from the powers and 



120 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

essence of thought and matter. Nor is the empire 
of the will over our mind more intelligible. The 
effect is there distinguishable and separable from the 
cause, and could not be foreseen without the experi- 
ence of their constant conjunction. We have com- 
mand over our mind to a certain degree, but beyond 
that lose all empire over it : and it is evidently im- 
possible to fix any precise bounds to our authority, 
where we consult not experience. In short, the 
actions of the mind are, in this respect, the same with 
those of matter. We perceive only their constant 
conjunction ; nor can we ever reason beyond it. No 
internal impression has an apparent energy, more 
than external objects have. Since, therefore, matter 
is confessed by philosophers to operate by an un- 
known force, we should in vain hope to attain an idea 
of force by consulting our own minds.* 

It has been established as a certain principle, that 
general or abstract ideas are nothing but individual 
ones taken in a certain light, and that, in reflecting 
on any object, it is as impossible to exclude from our 
thought all particular degrees of quantity and quality 
as from the real nature of things. If w&be possessed, 

* The same imperfection attends our ideas of the Deity ; but 
this can have no effect either on religion or morals. The order 
of the universe proves an omnipotent mind ; that is, a mind 
whose will is constantly attended with the obedience of every 
creature and being. Nothing more is requisite to give a foun- 
dation to all the articles of religion, nor is it necessary we 
should form a distinct idea of the force and energy of the su- 
preme Being. [This note and the paragraph to which it is 
added appeared originally in an appendix. — Ed.] 



Sec. XIV.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 121 

therefore, of any idea of power in general, we must 
also be able to conceive some particular species of it ; 
and, as power cannot subsist alone, but is always re- 
garded as an attribute of some being or existence, we 
must be able to place this power in some particular 
being, and conceive that being as endowed with a 
real force and energy, by which such a particular 
effect necessarily results from its operation. We 
must distinctly and particularly conceive the connec- 
tion betwixt the cause and effect, and be able to 
pronounce from a simple view of the one that it 
must be followed or preceded by the other. This is 
the true manner of conceiving a particular power in 
a particular body ; and, a general idea being impos- 
sible without an individual, where the latter is im- 
possible it is certain the former can never exist. 
Now nothing is more evident than that the human 
mind cannot form such an idea of two objects as to 
conceive any connection betwixt them, or compre- 
hend distinctly that power or efficacy by which they 
are united. Such a connection would amount to a 
demonstration, and would imply the absolute impos- 
sibility for the one object not to follow, or to be con- 
ceived not to follow, upon the other : which kind of 
connection has already been rejected in all cases. If 
any one is of a contrary opinion and thinks he has 
attained a notion of power in any particular object, I 
desire he may point out to me that object. But till 
I meet with such a one, which I despair of, I cannot 
forbear concluding that, since we can never distinctly 
conceive how any particular power can possibly reside 



122 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part lit. 

in any particular object, we deceive ourselves in 
imagining we can form any such general idea. 

Thus, upon the whole, we may infer that when we 
talk of any being, whether of a superior or inferior 
nature, as endowed with a power or force propor- 
tioned to any effect ; when we speak of a necessary 
connection betwixt objects, and suppose that this 
connection depends upon an efficacy or energy with 
which any of these objects are endowed ; in all these 
expressions, so applied, we have really no distinct 
meaning, and make use only of common words, with- 
out any clear and determinate ideas. But, as it is 
more probable that these expressions do here lose 
their true meaning by being wrong applied, than that 
they never have any meaning, it will be proper to 
bestow another consideration on this subject, to see if 
possibly we can discover the nature and origin of 
those ideas we annex to them. 

Suppose two objects to be presented to us, of which 
the one is the cause and the other the effect; it is plain 
that from the simple consideration of one or both 
these objects we never shall perceive the tie by which 
they are united, or be able certainly to pronounce 
that there is a connection betwixt them. It is not, 
therefore, from any one instance that we arrive at 
the idea of cause and effect, of a necessary connec- 
tion of power, of force, of energy, and of efficacy. 
Did we never see any but particular conjunctions of 
objects, entirely different from each other, we should 
never be able to form any such ideas. 

But again : suppose we observe several instances 
in which the same objects are always conjoined to- 



Sec. XIV.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 123 

gether, we immediately conceive a connection betwixt 
them, and begin to draw an inference from one to an- 
other. This multiplicity of resembling instances, 
therefore, constitutes the very essence of power or 
connection, and is the source from which the idea of 
it arises. In order, then, to understand the idea of 
power, we must consider that multiplicity ; nor do I 
ask more to give a solution of that difficulty which 
has so long perplexed us. For thus I reason. The 
repetition of perfectly similar instances can never alone 
give rise to an original idea, different from what is to 
be found in any particular instance, as has been ob- 
served, and as evidently follows from our fundamental 
principle that all ideas are copied from impressions. 
Since therefore the idea of power is a new original 
idea, not to be found in any one instance, and which 
yet arises from the repetition of several instances, it 
follows that the repetition alone has not that effect, 
but must either discover or produce something new 
which is the source of that idea. Did the repetition 
neither discover nor produce anything new, our ideas 
might be multiplied by it, but would not be enlarged 
above what they are upon the observation of one 
single instance. Every enlargement, therefore, (such 
as the idea of power or connection), which arises from 
the multiplicity of similar instances, is copied from 
some effects of the multiplicity, and will be perfectly 
understood by understanding these effects. Wherever 
we find anything new to be discovered or produced by 
the repetition, there we must place the power, and 
must never look for it in any other object. 

But it is evident, in the first place, that the repeti- 



124 THR PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

tion of like objects in like relations of succession and 
contiguity discovers nothing new in any one of them ; 
since we can draw no inference from it, nor make it a 
subject either of our demonstrative or probable reason- 
ings ; * as has been already proved. Nay, suppose we 
could draw an inference, it would be of no conse- 
quence in the present case; since no kind of reasoning 
can give rise to a new idea, such as this of power is ; 
but wherever we reason, we must antecedently be 
possessed of clear ideas, which may be the objects of 
our reasoning. The conception always precedes the 
understanding ; and where the one is obscure the 
other is uncertain ; where the one fails the other must 
fail also. 

Secondly, It is certain that this repetition of similar 
objects in similar situations produces nothing new 
either in these objects, or in any external body. For it 
will readily be allowed that the several instances we 
have of the conjunction of resembling causes and 
effects are in themselves entirely independent, and 
that the communication of motion which I see result 
at present from the shock of two billiard-balls is 
totally distinct from that which I saw result from 
such an impulse a twelvemonth ago. These impulses 
have no influence on each other. They are entirely 
divided by time and place ; and the one might have 
existed and communicated motion though the other 
never had been in being. 

There is, then, nothing new either discovered or 
produced in any objects by their constant conjunc- 

*Sec. vi. 



SEC. XIV.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. I 2$ 

tion and by the uninterrupted resemblance of their re- 
lations of succession and contiguity. But it is from 
this resemblance that the ideas of necessity, of power, 
and of efficacy are derived. These ideas, therefore, 
represent not anything that does or can belong to the 
objects which are constantly conjoined. This is an 
argument which, in every view we can examine it, 
will be found perfectly unanswerable. Similar in- 
stances are still the first source of our idea of power 
or necessity ; at the same time that they have no influ- 
ence by their similarity either on each other or on 
any external object. We must, therefore, turn our- 
selves to some other quarter to seek the origin of that 
idea. 

Though the several resembling instances which 
give rise to the idea of power have no influence on 
each other, and can never produce any new quality in 
the object which can be the model of that idea, yet the 
observation of this resemblance produces a new impres- 
sion in the mind, which is its real model. For, after 
we have observed the resemblance in a sufficient 
number of instances, we immediately feel a determina- 
tion of the mind to pass from one object to its usual 
attendant, and to conceive it in a stronger light upon 
account of that relation. This determination is the 
only effect of the resemblance ; and therefore must be 
the same with power or efficacy, whose idea is derived 
from the resemblance. The several instances of re- 
sembling conjunctions leads us into the notion of 
power and necessity. These instances are in them- 
selves totally distinct from each other, and have no 
union but in the mind which observes them and col- 



126 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

lects their ideas. Necessity, then, is the effect of this 
observation, and is nothing but an internal impression 
of the mind, or a determination to carry our thoughts 
from one object to another. Without considering it in 
this view, we can never arrive at the most distant no- 
tion of it, or be able to attribute it either to external or 
internal objects, to spirit or body, to causes or effects. 

The necessary connection betwixt causes and effects 
is the foundation of our inference from one to the 
other. The foundation of our inference is the transi- 
tion arising from the accustomed union. These are, 
therefore, the same. 

The idea of necessity arises from some impression. 
There is no impression conveyed by our senses which 
can give rise to that idea. It must, therefore, be de- 
rived from some internal impression, or impression of 
reflection. There is no internal impression which has 
any relation to the present business but that propen- 
sity which custom produces to pass from an object to 
the idea of its usual attendant. This, therefore, is the 
essence of necessity. Upon the whole, necessity is 
something that exists in the mind, not in objects ; nor 
is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea 
of it, considered as a quality in bodies. Either we 
have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but 
that determination of the thought to pass from causes 
to effects and from effects to causes, according to 
their experienced union. 

Thus, as the necessity which makes two times two 
equal to four, or three angles of a triangle equal to two 
right ones, lies only in the act of the understanding by 
which we consider and compare these ideas, in like 



Sec. XIV.] of knowledge and probability. 127 

manner the necessity or power which unites causes 
and effects lies in the determination of the mind to 
pass from the one to the other. The efficacy or 
energy of causes is neither placed in the causes them- 
selves, nor in the deity, nor in the concurrence of 
these two principles ; but belongs entirely to the soul 
which considers the union of two or more objects in 
all past instances. It is here that the real power of 
causes is placed, along with their connection and 
necessity. 

I am sensible that of all the paradoxes which I 
have had, or shall hereafter have, occasion to advance 
in the course of this treatise, the present one is the 
most violent, and that it is merely by dint of solid 
proof and reasoning I can ever hope it will have ad- 
mission, and overcome the inveterate prejudices of 
mankind. Before we are reconciled to this doctrine, 
how often must we repeat to ourselves, thzt the simple 
view of any two objects or actions, however related, 
can never give us any idea of power, or of a connec- 
tion betwixt them ; that this idea arises from the repe- 
tition of their union ; that the repetition neither dis- 
covers nor causes anything in the objects, but has an 
influence only on the mind, by that customary transi. 
tion it produces ; that this customary transition is, 
therefore, the same with the power and necessity ; 
which are consequently qualities of perceptions, not of 
objects, and are internally felt by the soul, and not 
perceived externally in bodies ? There is commonly 
an astonishment attending everything extraordinary ; 
and this astonishment changes immediately into the 
highest degree of esteem or contempt, according as we 



128 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART III. 

approve or disapprove of the subject. I am much 
afraid that though the foregoing reasoning appears 
to me the shortest and most decisive imaginable, yet 
with the generality of readers the bias of the mind 
will prevail, and give them a prejudice against the 
present doctrine. 

This contrary bias is easily accounted for. It is a 
common observation that the mind has a great propen- 
sity to spread itself on external objects, and to conjoin 
with them any internal impressions which they occa- 
sion and which always make their appearance at the 
same time that these objects discover themselves to 
the senses. Thus, as certain sounds and smells are 
always found to attend certain visible objects, we nat- 
urally imagine a conjunction, even in place, betwixt 
the objects and qualities, though the qualities be of 
such a nature as to admit of no such conjunction, and 
really exist nowhere. But of this more fully * hereafter. 
Meanwhile it is sufficient to observe that the same 
propensity is the reason why we suppose necessity and 
power to lie in the objects we consider, not in our 
mind that considers them, notwithstanding it is not 
possible for us to form the most distant idea of that 
quality when it is not taken for the determination of 
the mind to pass from the idea of an object to that of 
its usual attendant. 

But, though this be the only reasonable account we 
can give of necessity, the contrary notion is so riveted 
in the mind, from the principles above mentioned, that 
I doubt not but my sentiments will be treated by many 
as extravagant and ridiculous. What ! the efficacy of 

* Part IV., sec. v. 



Sec. XIV.] of knowledge and probability. 129 

causes lie in the determination of the mind ! As if 
causes did not operate entirely independent of the 
mind, and would not continue their operation even 
though there was no mind existent to contemplate 
them or reason concerning them. Thought may well 
depend on causes for its operation, but not causes on 
thought. This is to reverse the order of nature, and 
make that secondary which is really primary. To 
every operation there is a power proportioned ; and 
this power must be placed on the body that operates. 
If we remove the power from one cause, we must 
ascribe it to another ; but to remove it from all causes 
and bestow it on a being that is no ways related to the 
cause or effect but by perceiving them, is a gross ab- 
surdity, and contrary to the most certain principles of 
human reason. 

I can only reply to all these arguments that the case 
is here much the same as if a blind man should pre- 
tend to find a great many absurdities in the supposi- 
tion that the color of scarlet is not the same with the 
sound of a trumpet, nor light the same with solidity. 
If we have really no idea of a power or efficacy in 
any object, or of any real connection betwixt causes 
and effects, it will be to little purpose to prove that an 
efficacy is necessary in all operations. We do not 
understand our own meaning in talking so, but igno- 
rantly confound ideas which are entirely distinct from 
each other. I am, indeed, ready to allow that there 
may be several qualities, both in material and immate- 
rial objects, with which we are utterly unacquainted ; 
and if we please to call these power or efficacy, it will 
be of little consequence to the world. But, when, 



I30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

instead of meaning these unknown qualities, we make 
the terms of power and efficacy signify something of 
which we have a clear idea and which is incompatible 
with those objects to which we apply it, obscurity and 
error begin then to take place, and we are led astray 
by a false philosophy. This is the case when we trans- 
fer the determination of the thought to external ob- 
jects, and suppose any real intelligible connection 
betwixt them ; that being a quality which can only 
belong to the mind that considers them. 

As to what may be said that the operations of nature 
are independent of our thought and reasoning, I allow 
it; and accordingly have observed that objects bear to 
each other the relations of contiguity and succession, 
that like objects may be observed in several instances 
to have like relations, and that all this is independent 
of, and antecedent to, the operations of the under- 
standing. But, if we go any farther and ascribe a 
power or necessary connection to these objects, this 
is what we can never observe in them, but must draw 
the idea of it from what we feel internally in contem- 
plating them. And this I carry so far that I am ready 
to convert my present reasoning into an instance of 
it by a subtility which it will not be difficult to com- 
prehend. 

When any object is presented to us, it immediately 
conveys to the mind a lively idea of that object which 
is usually found to attend it ; and this determination 
of the mind forms the necessary connection of these 
objects. But when we change the point of view 
from the objects to the perceptions : in that case the 
impression is to be considered as the cause, and the 



Sec. XIV.] of knowledge and probability. 131 

lively idea as the effect ; and their necessary connec- 
tion is that new determination which we feel to pass 
from the idea of the one to that of the other. The 
uniting principle among our internal perceptions is as 
unintelligible as that among external objects, and is 
not known to us any other way than by experience. 
Now the nature and effects of experience have been 
already sufficiently examined and explained. It 
never gives us any insight into the internal structure 
or operating principle of objects, but only accustoms 
the mind to pass from one to another. 

It is now time to collect all the different parts of 
this reasoning, and by joining them together form an 
exact definition of the relation of cause and effect, 
which makes the subject of the present inquiry. This 
order would not have been excusable, of first examin- 
ing our inference from the relation before we had ex- 
plained the relation itself, had it been possible to 
proceed in a different method. But, as the nature of 
the relation depends so much on that of the inference, 
we have been obliged to advance in this seemingly 
preposterous manner, and make use of terms before 
we were able exactly to define them or fix their 
meaning. We shall now correct this fault by giving 
a precise definition of cause and effect. 

There may two definitions be given of this relation, 
which are only different by their presenting a differ- 
ent view of the same object, and making us consider 
it either as a philosophical or as a natural relation ; 
either as a comparison of two ideas, or as an associa- 
tion betwixt them. We may define a cause to be 
'An object precedent and contiguous to another, and 



132 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

where all the objects resembling the former are placed 
in like relations of precedency and contiguity to those 
objects that resemble the latter.' If this definition 
be esteemed defective because drawn from objects 
foreign to the cause, we may substitute this other 
definition in its place, viz., 'A cause is an object pre- 
cedent and contiguous to another, and so united with 
it that the idea of the one determines the mind to 
form the idea of the other, and the impression of the 
one to form a more lively idea of the other.' Should 
this definition also be rejected for the same reason, I 
know no other remedy than that the persons who 
express this delicacy should substitute a juster defi- 
nition in its place. But for my part I must own my 
incapacity for such an undertaking. When I examine 
with the utmost accuracy those objects which are 
commonly denominated causes and effects, I find, in 
considering a single instance, that the one object is 
precedent and contiguous to the other ; and, in enlarg- 
ing my view to consider several instances, I find only 
that like objects are constantly placed in like rela- 
tions of succession and contiguity. Again, when I 
consider the influence of this constant conjuction, I 
perceive that such a relation can never be an object 
of reasoning, and can never operate upon the mind, 
but by means of custom, which determines the imag- 
ination to make a transition from the idea of one 
object to that of its usual attendant, and from the im- 
pression of one to a more lively idea of the other. 
However extraordinary these sentiments may appear, 
I think it fruitless to trouble myself with any farther 



Sec. XIV.] of knowledge and probability. 133 

inquiry or reasoning upon the subject, but shall repose 
myself on them as on established maxims. 

It will only be proper, before we leave this subject, 
to draw some corollaries from it, by which we may 
remove several prejudices and popular errors that 
have very much prevailed in philosophy. First, We 
may learn from the foregoing doctrine that all causes 
are of the same kind, and that in particular there is 
no foundation for that distinction which we some- 
times make betwixt efficient causes and causes sine 
qua non j or betwixt efficient causes and formal, and 
material, and exemplary, and final causes. For, as 
our idea of efficiency is derived from the constant 
conjunction of two objects, wherever this is observed, 
the cause is efficient ; and where it is not, there can 
never be a cause of any kind. For the same reason 
we must reject the distinction between cause and 
occasion, when supposed to signify anything essen- 
tially different from each other. If constant con- 
junction be implied in what we call occasion, it is a 
real cause. If not, it is no relation at all, and cannot 
give rise to any argument or reasoning. 

Secondly, The same course of reasoning will make 
us conclude that there is but one kind of necessity, as 
there is but one kind of cause, and that the common 
distinction betwixt moral and physical necessity is 
without any foundation in nature. This clearly ap- 
pears from the precedent explication of necessity. 
It is the constant conjunction of objects, along with 
the determination of the mind, which constitutes a 
physical necessity : and the removal of these is the 
same thing with chance. As objects must either be 



134 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART III. 

conjoined or not, and as the mind must either be 
determined or not to pass from one object to another, 
it is impossible to admit of any medium betwixt 
chance and an absolute necessity. In weakening this 
conjunction and determination you do not change the 
nature of the necessity ; since even in the operation 
of bodies these have different degrees of constancy 
and force without producing a different species of 
that relation. 

The distinction which we often make betwixt 
power and the exercise of it is equally without foun- 
dation. 

Thirdly, We may now be able fully to overcome 
all that repugnance which it is so natural for us to 
entertain against the foregoing reasoning, by which 
we endeavored to prove that the necessity of a cause 
to every beginning of existence is not founded on any 
arguments either demonstrative or intuitive. Such an 
opinion will not appear strange after the foregoing 
definitions. If we define a cause to be An object pre- 
cedent and contiguous to another, and ivhere all the objects 
resembling the former are placed in a like relation of 
priority and contiguity to those objects that resemble the 
latter, we may easily conceive that there is no abso- 
lute nor metaphysical necessity that every beginning 
of existence should be attended with such an object. 
If we define a cause to be An object precedent a?id con- 
tiguous to another, and so united with it in the imagina- 
tion that the idea of the one determines the mind to form 
the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to 
form a more lively idea of the other, we shall make 
still less difficulty of assenting to this opinion. Such 



Sec. XV.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 135 

an influence on the mind is in itself perfectly extra- 
ordinary and incomprehensible ; nor can we be certain 
of its reality, but from experience and observation. 

I shall add as a fourth corollary that we can never 
have reason to believe that any object exists of which 
we cannot form an idea. For, as all our reasonings 
concerning existence are derived from causation, and 
as all our reasonings concerning causation are de- 
rived from the experienced conjunction of objects, 
not from any reasoning or reflection, the same expe- 
rience must give us a notion of these objects, and 
must remove all mystery from our conclusions. This 
is so evident that it would scarce have merited our 
attention, were it not to obviate certain objections of 
this kind which might arise against the following 
reasonings concerning matter and substance. I need 
not observe that a full knowledge of the object is not 
requisite, but only of those qualities of it which we 
believe to exist. 

SECTION XV. 

Rules by which to judge of causes and effects. 

According to the precedent doctrine, there are no 
objects which by the mere survey, without consulting 
experience, we can determine to be the causes of any 
other ; and no objects which we can certainly de- 
termine in the same manner not to be the causes. 
Anything may produce anything. Creation, annihila- 
tion, motion, reason, volition : all these may arise 



136 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part III. 

from one another, or from any other object we can 
imagine. Nor will this appear strange if we compare 
two principles explained above, that the constant con- 
junction of objects determines their causation, and * that, 
properly speaking, no objects are contrary to each other 
but existence and non-existence. Where objects are not 
contrary, nothing hinders them from having that con- 
stant conjunction on which the relation of cause and 
effect totally depends. 

Since therefore it is possible for all objects to be- 
come causes or effects to each other, it may be proper 
to fix some general rules by which we may know 
when they really are so. 

1. The cause and effect must be contiguous in 
space and time. 

2. The cause must be prior to the effect. 

3. There must be a constant union betwixt the 
cause and effect. It is chiefly this quality that con- 
stitutes the relation. 

4. The same cause always produces the same effect, 
and the same effect never arises but from the same 
cause. This principle we derive from experience, and 
is the source of most of our philosophical reasonings. 
For when by any clear experiment we have discovered 
the causes or effects of any phenomenon, we imme- 
diately extend our observation to every phenomenon 
of the same kind, without waiting for that constant 
repetition from which the first idea of this relation 
is derived. 

5. There is another principle, which hangs upon 

* Part I., sec. v. 



SEC. XV.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 137 

this, viz., that, where several different objects produce 
the same effect, it must be by means of some quality 
which we discover to be common amongst them. For, 
as like effects imply like causes, we must always 
ascribe the causation to the circumstance wherein 
we discover the resemblance. 

6. The following principle is founded on the same 
reason. The difference in the effects of two resem- 
bling objects must proceed from that particular in 
which they differ. For, as like causes alway produce 
like effects, when in any instance we find our expecta- 
tion to be disappointed, we must conclude that this 
irregularity proceeds from some difference in the 
causes. 

7. When any object increases or diminishes with 
the increase or diminution of its cause, it is to be 
regarded as a compounded effect, derived from the 
union of the several different effects which arise from 
the several different parts of the cause. The absence 
or presence of one part of the cause is here supposed 
to be always attended with the absence or presence 
of a proportionable part of the effect. This constant 
conjunction sufficiently proves that the one part is 
the cause of the other. We must, however, beware 
not to draw such a conclusion from a few experiments. 
A certain degree of heat gives pleasure ; if you dimin- 
ish that heat, the pleasure diminishes ; but it does 
not follow that if you augment it beyond a certain 
degree, the pleasure will likewise augment ; for we 
find that it degenerates into pain. 

8. The eighth and last rule I shall take notice of 
is that an object which exists for any time in its 



1 3S THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [BOOK II. 

full perfection without any effect is not the sole 
cause of that effect, but requires to be assisted by 
some other principle which may forward its influence 
and operation. For, as like effects necessarily follow 
from like causes and in a contiguous time and place, 
their separation for a moment shows that these causes 
are not complete ones. 



Of liberty and necessity. 
(From Book II., Part III., Sees. I., II.) 

We come now to explain the direct passions, or the 
impressions which arise immediately from good or 
evil, from pain or pleasure. Of this kind are desire 
and aversion, grief and joy, hope and fear. 

If objects had not an uniform and regular conjunc- 
tion with each other, we should never arrive at any 
idea of cause and effect ; and, even after all, the 
necessity which enters into that idea is nothing but 
a determination of the mind to pass from one object 
to its usual attendant and infer the existence of one 
from that of the other. Here then are two particu- 
lars which we are to consider as essential to neces- 
sity, viz., the constant union, and the inference of the 
mind ; and wherever we discover these we must 
acknowledge a necessity. As the actions of matter 
have no necessity but what is derived from these 
circumstances, and it is not by any insight into the 
essence of bodies we discover their connection, the 
absence of this insight, while the union and inference 



Book II.] OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. 139 

remain, will never, in any case, remove the necessity. 
It is the observation of the union which produces the 
inference ; for which reason it might be thought suffi- 
cient if we prove a constant union in the actions of 
the mind, in order to establish the inference along 
with the necessity of these actions. But that I may 
bestow a greater force on my reasoning, I shall ex- 
amine these particulars apart, and shall first prove 
from experience that our actions have a constant 
union with our motives, tempers, and circumstances, 
before I consider the inferences we draw from it. 

To this end a very slight and general view of the 
common course of human affairs will be sufficient. 
There is no light in which we can take them that 
does not confirm this principle. Whether we consider 
mankind according to the difference of sexes, ages, 
governments, conditions, or methods of education, 
the same uniformity and regular operation of natural 
principles are discernible. Like causes still produce 
like effects, in the same manner as in the mutual 
action of the elements and powers of nature. Are 
the products of Guienne and of Champagne more 
regularly different than the sentiments, actions, and 
passions of the two sexes? Are the changes of our 
body from infancy to old age more regular and cer- 
tain than those of our mind and conduct ? There is 
a general course of nature in human actions, as well 
as in the operations of the sun and the climate. 
There are also characters peculiar to different nations 
and particular persons, as well as common to man- 
kind. The knowledge of these characters is founded 
on the observation of an uniformity in the actions 



14© THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Book II. 

that flow from them ; and this uniformity forms the 
very essence of necessity. 

Now some may perhaps find a pretext to deny this 
regular union and connection. For what is more 
capricious than human actions ? What more incon- 
stant than the desires of man ? 

To this I reply that in judging of the actions of 
men we must proceed upon the same maxims as 
when we reason concerning external objects. No 
union can be more constant and certain than that of 
some actions with some motives and characters ; and, 
if in other cases the union is uncertain, it is no more 
than what happens in the operations of body, nor can 
we conclude anything from the one irregularity, which 
will not follow equally from the other. 

As the union betwixt motives and actions has the 
same constancy as that in any natural operations, so 
its influence on the understanding is also the same 
in determining us to infer the existence of one from 
that of another. Moral evidence is nothing but a con- 
clusion concerning the actions of men derived from 
the consideration of their motives, temper, and situa- 
tion. A prince who imposes a tax upon his subjects 
expects their compliance. A general who conducts 
an army makes account of a certain degree of cour- 
age. A merchant looks for fidelity and skill in his 
factor or supercargo. A man who gives orders for 
his dinner doubts not of the obedience of his ser- 
vants. Now I assert that whoever reasons after this 
manner does ipso facto believe the actions of the will 
to arise from necessity, and that he knows not what 
he means when he denies it. 



BOOK II. j OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY. I4I 

All those objects, of which we call the one cause 
and the other effect, considered in themselves, are as 
distinct and separate from each other as any two 
things in nature, nor can we ever, by the most accu- 
rate survey of them, infer the existence of the one 
from that of the other. It is only from experience 
and the observation of their constant union that we 
are able to form this inference ; and, even after all, 
the inference is nothing but the effects of custom on 
the imagination. We must not here be content with 
saying that the idea of cause and effect arises from 
objects constantly united ; but must affirm that it is 
the very same with the idea of these objects, and that 
the necessary connection is not discovered by a conclu- 
sion of the understanding, but is merely a perception 
of the mind. Wherever, therefore, we observe the 
same union, and wherever the union operates in the 
same manner upon the belief and opinion, we have 
the idea of causes and necessity, though perhaps we 
may avoid those expressions. Motion in one body, 
in all past instances that have fallen under our 
observation, is followed upon impulse by motion in 
another. It is impossible for the mind to penetrate 
farther. From this constant union it forms the idea 
of cause and effect, and by its influence feels the 
necessity. As there is the same constancy and the 
same influence in what we call moral evidence, I ask 
no more. What remains can only be a dispute of 
words. 

The necessity of any action, whether of matter or 
of the mind, is not properly a quality in the agent, 
but in any thinking or intelligent being who may 



■J42 THE PHILOSOPHY Of HUME. [Book II. 

consider the action, and consists in the determination 
of his thought to infer its existence from some pre- 
ceding objects. We can never free ourselves from the 
bonds of necessity. We may imagine we feel a lib- 
erty within ourselves ; but a spectator can commonly 
infer our actions from our motives and character; 
and, even where he cannot, he concludes in general 
that he might, were he perfectly acquainted with 
every circumstance of our situation and temper and 
the most secret springs of our complexion and dispo- 
sition. Now this is the very essence of necessity, 
according to the foregoing doctrine. 



PART IV. 



OF THE SCEPTICAL AND OTHER SYSTEMS OF 
PHILOSOPHY. 



SECTION I. 

Of scepticism with regard to reason. 

In all demonstrative sciences the rules are certain 
and infallible ; but when we apply them our fallible 
and uncertain faculties are very apt to depart from 
them and fall into error. We must, therefore, in 
every reasoning form a new judgment as a check or 
control on our first judgment or belief ; and must 
enlarge our view to comprehend a kind of history of 
all the instances wherein our understanding has de- 
ceived us, compared with those wherein its testimony 
was just and true. Our reason must be considered as 
a kind of cause, of which truth is the natural effect ; 
but such a one as by the irruption of other causes, 
and by the inconstancy of our mental powers, may 
frequently be prevented. By this means ail knowl- 
edge degenerates into probability ; and this proba- 
bility is greater or less, according to our experience 
of the veracity or deceitfulness of our understanding, 



144 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART IV. 

and according to the simplicity or intricacy of the 
question. 

There is no algebraist nor mathematician so expert 
in his science as to place entire confidence in any 
truth immediately upon his discovery of it, or regard 
it as anything but a mere probability. Every time 
he runs over his proofs his confidence increases ; but 
still more by the approbation of his friends ; and is 
raised to its utmost perfection by the universal assent 
and applauses of the learned world. Now it is evi- 
dent that this gradual increase of assurance is 
nothing but the addition of new probabilities, and is 
derived from the constant union of causes and effects, 
according to past experience and observation. 

In accounts of any length or importance, merchants 
seldom trust to the infallible certainty of numbers for 
their security, but, by the artificial structure of the 
accounts, produce a probability beyond what is de- 
rived from the skill and experience of the account- 
ant. For that is plainly of itself some degree of 
probability ; though uncertain and variable, accord- 
ing to the degrees of his experience and length of the 
account. Now, as none will maintain that our assur- 
ance in a long numeration exceeds probability, I may 
safely affirm that there scarce is any proposition con- 
cerning numbers of which we can have a fuller secu- 
rity. For it is easily possible, by gradually diminishing 
the numbers, to reduce the longest series of addition 
to the most simple question which can be formed, to 
an addition of two single numbers. If any single addi- 
tion were certain, every one would be so, and conse- 
quently the whole or total sum. 



SEC. I.] OF THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. IJ$ 

Since, therefore, all knowledge resolves itself into 
probability, and becomes at last of the same nature 
with that evidence which we employ in common life, 
we must now examine this latter species of reasoning, 
and see on what foundation it stands. 

In every judgment which we can form concerning 
probability as well as concerning knowledge, we ought 
always to correct the first judgment, derived from the 
nature of the object, by another judgment, derived 
from the nature of the understanding. Even the man 
of the best sense and longest experience must be con- 
scious of many errors in the past, and must still dread 
the like for the future. Here then arises a new spe- 
cies of probability to correct and regulate the first, and 
fix its just standard and proportion. 

Having adjusted these two together, we are obliged 
by our reason to add a new doubt derived from the 
possibility of error in the estimation we make of the 
truth and fidelity of our faculties. This is a doubt 
which immediately occurs to us, and of which, if we 
would closely pursue our reason, we cannot avoid giv- 
ing a decision. But this decision, though it should be 
favorable to our preceding judgment, being founded 
only on probability, must weaken still further our first 
evidence, and must itself be weakened by a fourth 
doubt of the same kind, and so on in infinitum j till at 
last there remain nothing of the original probability, 
however great we may suppose it to have been, and 
however small the diminution by every new uncer- 
tainty. All the rules of logic require a continual dim- 
inution, and at last a total extinction, of belief and 
evidence. 



146 THE PHILOSOPHY OK HUME. [PART IV. 

Should it here be asked me whether I sincerely as- 
sent to this argument which I seem to take such pains 
to inculcate, and whether I be really one of those 
sceptics who hold that all is uncertain and that our 
judgment is not in any thing possessed of any meas- 
ures of truth and falsehood ; I should reply that this 
question is entirely superfluous, and that neither I nor 
any other person was ever sincerely and constantly of 
that opinion. Nature, by an absolute and uncontrol- 
lable necessity, has determined us to judge as well as to 
breathe and feel. My intention, then, in displaying so 
carefully the arguments of that fantastic sect is only 
to make the reader sensible of the truth of my hypoth- 
esis that all our reasonings concerning causes and effects 
are derived from nothing but custom, and that belief is 
more properly an act of the sensitive than of the cogita- 
tive part of our natures. If belief, therefore, were a 
simple act of the thought, without any peculiar man- 
ner of conception or the addition of a force and vi- 
vacity, it must infallibly destroy itself, and in every 
case terminate in a total suspense of judgment. But, 
as experience will sufficiently convince any one who 
thinks it worth while to try that though he can find 
no error in the foregoing arguments, yet he still con- 
tinues to believe and think and reason as usual, he 
may safely conclude that his reasoning and belief is 
some sensation or peculiar manner of conception, 
which it is impossible for mere ideas and reflections 
to destroy. 

It is therefore demanded how it happens that even 
after all we retain a degree of belief which is sufficient 
for our purpose either in philosophy or common life? 



SEC. II.] OF THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 147 

I answer that after the first and second decision, 
as the action of the mind becomes forced and unnat- 
ural and the ideas faint and obscure, though the 
principles of judgment and the balancing of opposite 
causes be the same as at the very beginning, yet their 
influence on the imagination and the vigor they add 
to or diminish from the thought is by no means equal. 

No wonder, then, the conviction which arises from 
a subtile reasoning diminishes in proportion to the 
efforts which the imagination makes to enter into the 
reasoning and to conceive it in all its parts. Belief, 
being a lively conception, can never be entire where 
it is not founded on something natural and easy. 

SECTION II. 
Of scepticism with regard to the senses. 

Thus the sceptic still continues to reason and be- 
lieve, even though he asserts that he cannot defend 
his reason by reason ; and by the same rule he must 
assent to the principle concerning the existence of 
body, though he cannot pretend by any arguments of 
philosophy to maintain its veracity. We may well 
ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of 
body ? but it is in vain to ask, Whether there be body 
or not? That is a point which we must take for 
granted in all our reasonings. 

The subject, then, of our present enquiry is con- 
cerning the causes which induce us to believe in the 
existence of body. 

We ought to examine apart those two questions 



I48 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART IV. 

which are commonly confounded together, viz., Why 
we attribute a continued existence to objects even 
when they are not present to the senses, and Why we 
suppose them to have an existence distinct from 
the mind and perception. Under this last head I 
comprehend their situation as well as relations, their 
external position as well as the independence of their 
existence and operation. These two questions con- 
cerning the continued and distinct existence of body 
are intimately connected together. For, if the objects 
of our senses continue to exist even when they are 
not perceived, their existence is of course independ- 
ent of and distinct from the perception ; and, vice 
versa, if their existence be independent of the percep- 
tion and distinct from it, they must continue to exist 
even though they be not perceived. But though the 
decision of the one question decides the other ; yet, 
that we may the more easily discover the principles 
of human nature from whence the decision arises, we 
shall carry along with us this distinction, and shall 
consider whether it be the senses, reason, or the imagi- 
nation that produces the opinion of a continued or of a 
distinct existence. These are the only questions that 
are intelligible on the present subject. For, as to the 
notion of external existence, when taken for some- 
thing specifically different from our perceptions,* we 
have already shown its absurdity. 

To begin with the senses, it is evident these facul- 
ties are incapable of giving rise to the notion of the 
continued existence of their objects after they no 

* Part II., sec. VI, 



SEC. II.] OF THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 149 

longer appear to the senses. For that is a contradic- 
tion in terms, and supposes that the senses continue 
to operate even after they have ceased all manner of 
operation. These faculties, therefore, if they have 
any influence in the present case, must produce the 
opinion of a distinct, not of a continued, existence ; 
and, in order to that, must present their impressions 
either as images and representations, or as these very 
distinct and external existences. 

That our senses offer not their impressions as the 
images of something distinct, or independent, and exter- 
nal, is evident ; because they convey to us nothing 
but a single perception, and never give us the least 
intimation of anything beyond. A single perception 
can never produce the idea of a double existence, 
but by some inference either of the reason or imagi- 
nation. When the mind looks farther than what im- 
mediately appears to it, its conclusions can never be 
put. to the account of the senses ; and it certainly 
looks farther when from a single perception it infers 
a double existence, and supposes the relations of re- 
semblance and causation betwixt them. 

We may also observe that we can attribute a dis- 
tinct, continued existence to objects without ever 
consulting reason, or weighing our opinions by any 
philosophical principles. For philosophy informs us 
that every thing which appears to the mind is noth- 
ing but a perception, and is interrupted and de- 
pendent on the mind ; whereas the vulgar confound 
perceptions and objects, and attribute a distinct, 
continued existence to the very things they feel or 
323. This sentiment, then, as it is entirely unreason- 



150 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part IV. 

able, must proceed from some other faculty than the 
understanding. That opinion must be entirely owing 
to the imagination : which must now be the subject 
of our enquiry. 

Since all impressions are internal and perishing ex- 
istences, and appear as such, the notion of their dis- 
tinct and continued existence must arise from a con- 
currence of some of their qualities with the qualities 
of the imagination ; and since this notion does not 
extend to all of them, it must arise from certain qual- 
ities peculiar to some impressions. It will therefore 
be easy for us to discover these qualities by a com- 
parison of the impressions to which we attribute a 
distinct and continued existence with those which we 
regard as internal and perishing. 

We may observe, then, that it is neither upon ac- 
count of the involuntariness of certain impressions, as 
is commonly supposed, nor of their superior force and 
violence, that we attribute to them a reality and con- 
tinued existence which we refuse to others that are 
voluntary or feeble. For it is evident our pains and 
pleasures, our passions and affections, which we never 
suppose to have any existence beyond our percep- 
tion, operate with greater violence and are equally 
involuntary as the impressions of figure and exten- 
sion, color and sound, which we suppose to be perma- 
nent beings. The heat of a fire, when moderate, is 
supposed to exist in the fire ; but the pain which it 
causes upon a near approach is not taken to have 
any being except in the perception. 

These vulgar opinions, then, being rejected, we 
must search for some other hypothesis by which we 



S ICC. 1 1. J Ol' THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. l$t 

may discover those peculiar qualities in our impres- 
sions which make us attribute to them a distinct and 
continued existence. 

After a little examination, we shall find that all 
those objects to which we attribute a continued ex- 
istence have a peculiar constancy, which distinguishes 
them from the impressions whose existence depends 
upon our perception. Those mountains, and houses, 
and trees which lie at present under my eye have 
always appeared to me in the same order ; and when 
I lose sight of them by shutting my eyes or turning 
my head, I soon after find them return upon me 
without the least alteration. My bed and table, my 
books and papers present themselves in the same 
manner, and change not upon account of any inter- 
ruption in my seeing or perceiving them. This is the 
case with all the impressions whose objects are sup- 
posed to have an external existence ; and is the case 
with no other impressions, whether gentle or violent, 
voluntary or involuntary. 

This constancy, however, is not so perfect as not to 
admit of very considerable exceptions. Bodies often 
change their position and qualities, and after a little 
absence or interruption may become hardly knowable. 
But here it is observable that even in these changes 
they preserve a coherence, and have a regular depend- 
ence on each other ; which is the foundation of a 
kind of reasoning from causation, and produces the 
opinion of their continued existence. When I return 
to my chamber after an hour's absence, I find not my 
fire in the same situation in which I left it : but then 
I am accustomed in other instances to see a like alter- 



152 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part IV. 

ation produced in a like time, whether I am present 
or absent, near or remote. This coherence, therefore, 
in their changes is one of the characteristics of exter- 
nal objects, as well as their constancy. 

Having found that the opinion of the continued ex- 
istence of body depends on the coherence and con- 
stancy of certain impressions, I now proceed to ex- 
amine after what manner these qualities give rise to 
so extraordinary an opinion. To begin with the co- 
herence : we may observe that though these internal 
impressions which we regard as fleeting and perishing 
have also a certain coherence or regularity in their 
appearances, yet it is of somewhat a different nature 
from that which we discover in bodies. Our passions 
are found by experience to have a mutual connection 
with and dependence on each other ; but on no occa- 
sion is it necessary to suppose that they have existed 
and operated when they were not perceived, in order 
to preserve the same dependence and connection of 
which we have had experience. The case is not the 
same with relation to external objects. Those require 
a continued existence, or otherwise lose, in a great 
measure, the regularity of their operation. Here then 
I am naturally led to regard the world as something 
real and durable, and as preserving its existence even 
when it is no longer present to my perception. 

But it is evident that, whenever we infer the con- 
tinued existence of the objects of sense from their co- 
herence and the frequency of their union, it is in 
order to bestow on the objects a greater regularity 
than what is observed in our mere perceptions. 
The imagination, when set into any train of thinking, 



Sec. II.] OP THE SCEPTICAL PHlLOSOPHV. 1$$ 

is apt to continue even when its object fails it, and, 
like a galley put in motion by the oars, carries on its 
course without any new impulse. Objects have a cer- 
tain coherence even as they appear to our senses ; but 
this coherence is much greater and more uniform if 
we suppose the objects to have a continued existence ; 
and, as the mind is once in the train of observing an 
uniformity among objects, it naturally continues till 
it renders the uniformity as complete as possible. 
The simple supposition of their continued existence 
suffices for this purpose, and gives us a notion of a 
much greater regularity among objects than what 
they have when we look no farther than our senses. 

But whatever force we may ascribe to this principle, 
I am afraid it is too weak to support alone so vast an 
edifice as is that of the continued existence of all ex- 
ternal bodies, and that we must join the constancy of 
their appearance to the coherence in order to give a 
satisfactory account of that opinion. As the explica- 
tion of this will lead me into a considerable compass 
of very profound reasoning, I think it proper, in 
order to avoid confusion, to give a short sketch or 
abridgment of my system, and afterwards draw out all 
its parts in their full compass. This inference from 
the constancy of our perceptions, like the precedent 
from their coherence, gives rise to the opinion of the 
continued existence of body, which is prior to that of 
its distinct existence and produces that latter prin- 
ciple. 

When we have been accustomed to observe a con- 
stancy in certain impressions, and have found that 
the perception of the sun or ocean, for instance, re- 



154 THE PHILOSOPHY Of HtfME. [Part IV, 

turns upon us after an absence or annihilation with 
like parts and in a like order as at its first appearance, 
we are not apt to regard these interrupted perceptions 
as different (which they really are), but on the con- 
trary consider them as individually the same, upon 
account of their resemblance. But, as this interrup- 
tion of their existence is contrary to their perfect 
identity, and makes us regard the first impression as 
annihilated and the second as newly created, we find 
ourselves somewhat at a loss, and are involved in a kind 
of contradiction. In order to free ourselves from this 
difficulty, we disguise as much as possible the inter- 
ruption, or rather remove it entirely, by supposing 
that these interrupted perceptions are connected by a 
real existence of which we are insensible. This sup- 
position, or idea of continued existence, acquires a 
force and vivacity from the memory of these broken 
impressions and from that propensity which they 
give us to suppose them the same ; and, according to 
the precedent reasoning, the very essence of belief 
consists in the force and vivacity of the conception. 

In order to justify this system there are four things 
requisite. First, To explain the principium individu- 
ationis, or principle of identity. Secondly, Give a rea- 
son why the resemblance of our broken and inter- 
rupted perceptions induces us to attribute an identity 
to them. Thirdly, Account for that propensity, which 
this illusion gives, to unite these broken appearances 
by a continued existence. Fourthly, and lastly, Ex- 
plain that force and vivacity of conception which 
arises from the propensity. 

First, As to the principle of individuation ; we can- 



Sec. II.] OP THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. I$5 

not, in any propriety of speech, say that an object 
is the same with itself, unless we mean that the 
object existent at one time is the same with itself 
existent at another. Thus the principle of individu- 
ation is nothing but the invariableness and nninter- 
rupedness of any object through a supposed variation 
of time, by which the mind can trace it in the differ- 
ent periods of its existence without any break of the 
view and without being obliged to form the idea of 
multiplicity or number. 

I now proceed to explain the second part of my 
system, and show why the constancy of our percep- 
tions makes us ascribe to them a perfect numerical 
identity, though there be very long intervals betwixt 
their appearance and they have only one of the es- 
sential qualities of identity, viz., invariableness. That 
I may avoid all ambiguity and confusion on this head, 
I shall observe that I here account for the opinions 
and belief of the vulgar with regard to the existence 
or" body ; and therefore must entirely conform myself 
to their manner of thinking and of expressing them- 
selves. Now we have already observed that however 
philosophers may distinguish betwixt the objects and 
perceptions of the senses — which they suppose coex- 
istent and resembling — yet this is a distinction which 
is not comprehended by the generality of mankind, 
who, as they perceive only one being, can never assent 
to the opinion of a double existence and representa- 
tion. Those very sensations which enter by the eye 
or ear are with them the true objects, nor can they 
readily conceive that this pen or paper, which is im- 
mediately perceived, represents another, which is dif- 



156 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part IV. 

ferent from, but resembling it. In order therefore 
to accommodate myself to their notions, I shall at first 
suppose that there is only a single existence, which 
I shall call indifferently object ox perception, according 
as it shall seem best to suit my purpose, understand- 
ing by both of them what any common man means by 
a hat, or shoe, or stone, or any other impression con- 
veyed to him by his senses. I shall be sure to give 
warning when I return to a more philosophical way of 
speaking and thinking. 

To enter, therefore, upon the question concerning 
the source of the error and deception with regard to 
identity when we attribute it to our resembling per- 
ceptions notwithstanding their interruption, I must 
here recall an observation which I have already 
proved and explained.* Nothing is more apt to make 
us mistake one idea for another than any relation 
betwixt them which associates them together in the 
imagination and makes it pass with facility from one 
to the other. Of all relations that of resemblance is 
in this respect the most efficacious ; and that because 
it not only causes an association of ideas, but also of 
dispositions, and makes us conceive the one idea by 
an act or operation of the mind similar to that by 
which we conceive the other. 

We find by experience that there is such a constancy 
in almost all the impressions of the senses that their 
interruption produces no alteration on them, and 
hinders them not from returning the same in appear- 
ance and in situation as at their first existence. I 

* Part II. sec. v. 



Sec. II.] of the sceptical philosophy. 157 

survey the furniture of my chamber ; I shut my eyes, 
and afterwards open them ; and find the new per- 
ceptions to resemble perfectly those which formerly 
struck my senses. This resemblance is observed in a 
thousand instances, and naturally connects together 
our ideas of these interrupted perceptions by the 
strongest relation, and conveys the mind with an easy 
transition from one to another. An easy transition or 
passage of the imagination along the ideas of these 
different and interrupted perceptions is almost the 
same disposition of mind with that in which we con- 
sider one constant and uninterrupted perception. It 
is therefore very natural for us to mistake the one for 
the other. The thought slides along the succession 
with equal facility, as if it considered only one object ; 
and therefore confounds the succession with the 
identity.* 

But, as the interruption of the appearance seems 
contrary to the identity, and naturally leads us to re- 
gard these resembling perceptions as different from 
each other, we here find ourselves at a loss how to 
reconcile such opposite opinions. The smooth pas- 
sage of the imagination along the ideas of the resem- 
bling perceptions makes us ascribe to them a perfect 
identity. The interrupted manner of their appearance 
makes us consider them as so many resembling, but 

* There are two relations, and both of them resemblances, 
which contribute to our mistaking the succession of our inter- 
rupted perceptions for an identical object. The first is the re- 
semblance of the perceptions ; the second is the resemblance 
which the act of the mind in surveying a succession of resem- 
bling objects bears to that in surveying an identical object. 



158 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part IV. 

still distinct, beings which appear after certain inter- 
vals. The perplexity arising from this contradiction 
produces a propension to unite these broken appear- 
ances by the fiction of a continued existence; which is 
the third part of that hypothesis I proposed to explain. 

But as the appearance of a perception in the mind 
and its existence seem at first sight entirely the same, 
it may be doubted whether we can ever assent to so 
palpable a contradiction, and suppose a perception to 
exist without being present to the mind. 

It is certain that almost all mankind, and even phi- 
losophers themselves, for the greatest part of their 
lives, take their perceptions to be their only objects, 
and suppose that the very being which is intimately 
present to the mind is the real body or material exist- 
ence. It is also certain that this very perception or 
object is supposed to have a continued uninterrupted 
being, and neither to be annihilated by our absence, 
nor to be brought into existence by our presence. 
When we are absent from it, we say it still exists, but 
that we do not feel, we do not see it. When we are 
present, we say we feel, or see it. Here then may 
arise two questions : First, How we can satisfy our- 
selves in supposing a perception to be absent from the 
mind without being annihilated. Secondly, After what 
manner we conceive an object to become present to 
the mind without some new creation of a perception 
or image ; and what we mean by this seeing, and feel- 
ing, and perceiving. 

As to the first question: We may observe that what 
we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of 
different perceptions united together by certain rela- 



SEC. II.] OF THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 159 

tions, and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed 
with a perfect simplicity and identity. Now as every 
perception is distinguishable from another, and may 
be considered as separately existent, it evidently fol- 
lows that there is no absurdity in separating any par- 
ticular perception from the mind ; that is, in breaking 
off all its relations with that connected mass of per- 
ceptions which constitute a thinking being. 

The same reasoning affords us an answer to the 
second question. If the name of perception renders 
not this separation from a mind absurd and contra- 
dictory, the name of object, standing for the very same 
thing, can never render their conjunction impossible. 
External objects are seen, and felt, and become pres- 
ent to the mind ; that is, they acquire such a relation 
to a connected heap of perceptions as to influence 
them very considerably in augmenting their number 
by present reflections and passions, and in storing the 
memory with ideas. The same continued and unin- 
terrupted Being may, therefore, be sometimes present 
to the mind, and sometimes absent from it, without 
any real or essential change in the Being itself. An 
interrupted appearance to the senses implies not nec- 
essarily an interruption in the existence. The suppo- 
sition of the continued existence of sensible objects or 
perceptions involves no contradiction. 

But, as we here not only feign but believe this con- 
tinued existence, the question is, from whence arises 
such a belief; and this question leads us to the fourth 
member of this system. It has been proved already 
that belief in general consists in nothing but the vivac- 



160 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part IV. 

ity of an idea, and that an idea may acquire this 
vivacity by its relation to some present impression. 

Our memory presents us with a vast number of in- 
stances of perceptions perfectly resembling each other 
that return at different distances of time and after 
considerable interruptions. This resemblance gives 
us a propension to consider these interrupted percep- 
tions as the same ; and also a propension to connect 
them by a continued existence, in order to justify this 
identity, and avoid the contradiction in which the in- 
terrupted appearance of these perceptions seems nec- 
essarily to involve us. Here then we have a propensity 
to feign the continued existence of all sensible objects ; 
and, as this propensity arises from some lively impres- 
sions of the memory, it bestows a vivacity on that 
fiction ; or, in other words, makes us believe the con- 
tinued existence of body. 

But, though we are led after this manner, by the 
natural propensity of the imagination, to ascribe a con- 
tinued existence to those sensible objects or percep- 
tions which we find to resemble each other in their 
interrupted appearance, yet a very little reflection and 
philosophy is sufficient to make us perceive the fallacy 
of that opinion. I have already observed that there 
is an intimate connection betwixt those two princi- 
ples, of a continued and of a distinct or indepe?ident ex- 
istence, and that we no sooner establish the one than 
the other follows, as a necessary consequence. It is 
the opinion of a continued existence which first takes 
place, and without much study or reflection draws the 
other along with it, wherever the mind follows its first 
and most natural tendency. But, when we compare 



SEC. II.] OF THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. l6l 

experiments, and reason a little upon them, we quickly 
perceive that the doctrine of the independent exist- 
ence of our sensible perceptions is contrary to the 
plainest experience. 

When we press one eye with a finger, we immedi- 
ately perceive all the objects to become double, and 
one half of them to be removed from their common 
and natural position. But, as we do not attribute a 
continued existence to both these perceptions, and as 
they are both of the same nature, we clearly perceive 
that all our perceptions are dependent on our organs 
and the disposition of our nerves and animal spirits. 

The natural consequence of this reasoning should 
be that our perceptions have no more a continued 
than an independent existence. The case, however, 
is otherwise. Philosophers are so far from rejecting 
the opinion of a continued existence upon rejecting 
that of the independence and continuance of our sensi- 
ble perceptions, that, though all sects agree in the latter 
sentiment, the former, which is, in a manner, its neces- 
sary consequence, has been peculiar to a few extrava- 
gant sceptics ; who after all maintained that opinion 
in words only, and were never able to bring themselves 
sincerely to believe it. 

There is a great difference betwixt such opinions as 
we form after a calm and profound reflection, and 
such as we embrace by a kind of instinct or natural 
impulse, on account of their suitableness and con- 
formity to the mind. If these opinions become con- 
trary, it is not difficult to foresee which of them will 
have the advantage. As long as our attention is 
bent upon the subject, the philosophical and studied 



162 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART IV. 

principle may prevail ; but the moment we relax our 
thoughts, nature will display herself and draw us back 
to our former opinion. Nay, she has sometimes such 
an influence that she can stop our progress, even in 
the midst of our most profound reflections and keep 
us from running on with all the consequences of any 
philosophical opinion. Thus, though we clearly per- 
ceive the dependence and interruption of our percep- 
tions, we stop short in our career, and never upon that 
account reject the notion of an independent and con- 
tinued existence. That opinion has taken such a 
deep root in the imagination that it is impossible ever 
to eradicate it, nor will any strained metaphysical con- 
viction of the dependence of our perceptions be suffi- 
cient for that purpose. 

But, though our natural and obvious principles here 
prevail above our studied reflections, it is certain there 
must be some struggle and opposition in the case ; at 
least so long as these reflections retain any force or 
vivacity. In order to set ourselves at ease in this 
particular, we contrive a new hypothesis, which seems 
to comprehend both these principles of reason and 
imagination, and distinguish (as we shall do for the 
future) betwixt perceptions and objects, of which the 
former are supposed to be interrupted and perishing 
and different at every different return ; the latter to 
be uninterrupted, and to preserve a continued exist- 
ence and identity. This hypothesis is the philosophi- 
cal one of the double existence of perceptions and ob- 
jects ; which pleases our reason, in allowing that our 
dependent perceptions are interrupted and different ; 
and at the same time is agreeable to the imagination, 



SEC. II.] OF THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 163 

in attributing a continued existence to something else, 
which we call objects. This philosophical system, there- 
fore, is the monstrous offspring of two principles which 
are contrary to each other, which are both at once em- 
braced by the mind, and which are unable mutually to 
destroy each other. Not being able to reconcile these 
two enemies, we endeavor to set ourselves at ease as 
much as possible, by successively granting to each 
whatever it demands, and by feigning a double exist- 
ence, where each may find something that has all the 
conditions it desires. 

Having thus given an account of all the systems, 
both popular and philosophical, with regard to ex- 
ternal existences, I cannot forbear giving vent to a 
certain sentiment which arises upon reviewing those 
systems. I begun this subject with premising that 
we ought to have an implicit faith in our senses, and 
that this would be the conclusion I should draw from 
the whole of my reasoning. But to be ingenuous, I 
feel myself at present of a quite contrary sentiment, 
and am more inclined to repose no faith at all in my 
senses, or rather imagination, than to place in it such 
an implicit confidence. I cannot conceive how such 
trivial qualities of the fancy, conducted by such false 
suppositions, can ever lead to any solid and rational 
system. What then can we look for from this con- 
fusion of groundless and extraordinary opinions but 
error and falsehood ? And how can we justify to our- 
selves any belief we repose in them ? 

This sceptical doubt, both with respect to reason 
and the senses, is a malady which can never be radi- 
cally cured, but must return upon us every moment, 



.164 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART IV. 

however we may chase it away and sometimes may 
seem entirely free from it. It is impossible upon any 
system to defend either our understanding or senses ; 
and we but expose them farther when we endeavor to 
justify them in that manner. As the sceptical doubt 
arises naturally from a profound and intense reflection 
on those subjects, it always increases the farther we 
carry our reflections, whether in opposition or con- 
formity to it. Carelessness and inattention alone can 
afford us any remedy. For this reason I rely entirely 
upon them ; and take it for granted, whatever may be 
the reader's opinion at this present moment, that an 
hour hence he will be persuaded there is both an ex- 
ternal and internal world. 

SECTION V. 



Of the immateriality of the soul. 

The intellectual world, though involved in infinite 
obscurities, is not perplexed with any such contradic- 
tions as those we have discovered in the natural. 
What is known concerning it agrees with itself ; and 
what is unknown we must be contented to leave so. 

It is true, would we hearken to certain philosophers, 
they promise to diminish our ignorance ; but I am 
afraid it is at the hazard of running us into contra- 
dictions from which the subject is of itself exempted. 
These philosophers are the curious reasoners concern- 
ing the material or immaterial substances in which 
they suppose our perceptions to inhere. In order to 



Sec. V.] of the sceptical philosophy. 165 

put a stop to these endless cavils on both sides, I know- 
no better method than to ask these philosophers in a 
few words What they mean by substance and inhesion ? 
And after they have answered this question, it will 
then be reasonable, and not till then, to enter seriously 
into the dispute. 

This question we have found impossible to be 
answered with regard to matter and body ; for it is 
confessed by the most judicious philosophers that our 
ideas of bodies are nothing but collections formed by 
the mind of the ideas of the several distinct sensible 
qualities of which objects are composed and which 
we find to have a constant union with each other. In 
the case of the mind it labors under all the same dif- 
ficulties. As every idea is derived from a precedent 
impression, had we any idea of the substance of our 
minds, we must also have an impression of it ; which 
is very difficult, if not impossible, to be conceived. 
For how can an impression represent a substance 
otherwise than by resembling it ? And how can an 
impression resemble a substance since, according to 
this philosophy, it is not a substance, and has none of 
the peculiar qualities or characteristics of a substance ? 

But leaving the question of what may or may not be 
for that other tvhat actually is, I desire those philoso- 
phers who pretend that we have an idea of the sub- 
stance of our minds to point out the impression that 
produces it, and tell distinctly after what manner that 
impression operates and from what object it is de- 
rived. Is it an impression of sensation or of reflection ? 
Is is pleasant, or painful, or indifferent ? Does it at- 
tend us at all times, or does it only return at intervals ? 



1 66 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [PART IV. 

If at intervals, at what times principally does it re- 
turn, and by what causes is it produced ? 

If, instead of answering these questions, any one 
should evade the difficulty by saying that the defini- 
tion of a substance is something which may exist by 
itself, and that this definition ought to satisfy us : 
should this be said, I should observe that this defini- 
tion agrees to everything that can possibly be con- 
ceived, and never will serve to distinguish substance 
from accident, or the soul from its perceptions. For 
thus I reason : Whatever is clearly conceived may 
exist ; and whatever is clearly conceived, after any 
manner, may exist after the same manner. This is 
one principle, which has been already acknowledged. 
Again, everything which is different is distinguish- 
able, and everything which is distinguishable is sepa- 
rable by the imagination. This is another principle. 
My conclusion from both is that, since all our percep- 
tions are different from each other and from every 
thing else in the universe, they are also distinct and 
separable, and may be considered as separately exist- 
ent, and may exist separately, and have no need of any- 
thing else to support their existence. They are, there- 
fore, substances, as far as this definition explains a 
substance. 

Thus neither by considering the first origin of ideas 
nor by means of a definition are we able to arrive at 
any satisfactory notion of substance ; which seems to 
me a sufficient reason for abandoning utterly that dis- 
pute concerning the materiality and immateriality 
of the soul, and makes me absolutely condemn even 
the question itself. We have no perfect idea of any 



Sec. V.] of the Sceptical philosophy. 167 

thing but of a perception. A substance is entirely 
different from a perception. We have, therefore, no 
idea of a substance. Inhesion in something is supposed 
to be requisite to support the existence of our percep- 
tions. Nothing appears requisite to support the exist- 
ence of a perception. We have, therefore, no idea of 
inhesion. What possibility then of answering that 
question Whether perceptions inhere in a material or im- 
material substance, when we do not so much as under- 
stand the meaning of the question ? 

From these hypotheses concerning the substance of 
our perceptions we may pass to another, which is 
more intelligible, viz., concerning the cause of our per- 
ceptions. Matter and motion, it is commonly said in 
the schools, however varied, are still matter and mo- 
tion, and produce only a difference in the position and 
situation of objects. Divide a body as often as you 
please, it is still body. Place it in any figure, nothing 
ever results but figure, or the relation of parts. Move 
it in any manner, you still find motion or a change of 
relation. It is absurd to imagine that motion in a 
circle, for instance, should be nothing but merely mo- 
tion in a circle ; while motion in another direction, as 
in an ellipse, should also be a passion or moral reflec- 
tion : that the shocking of two globular particles 
should become a sensation of pain, and that the meet- 
ing of two triangular ones should afford a pleasure. 
Now as these different shocks and variations and 
mixtures are the only changes of which matter is sus- 
ceptible, and as these never afford us any idea of 
thought or perception, it is concluded to be impos- 
sible that thought can ever be caused by matter. 



l68 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part IV. 

Few have been able to withstand the seeming evi- 
dence of this argument ; and yet nothing in the world 
is more easy than to refute it. We need only reflect 
on what has been proved at large, that we are never 
sensible of any connection betwixt causes and effects, 
and that it is only by our experience of their constant 
conjunction we can arrive at any knowledge of this 
relation. Now as all objects which are not contrary 
are susceptible of a constant conjunction, and as no 
real objects are contrary, * I have inferred from 
these principles that, to consider the matter a priori, 
anything may produce anything, and that we shall 
never discover a reason why any object may or may 
not be the cause of any other, however great, or how- 
ever little the resemblance may be betwixt them. 
This evidently destroys the precedent reasoning con- 
cerning the cause of thought or perception. For, 
though there appear no manner of connection betwixt 
motion or thought, the case is the same with all other 
causes and effects. 

To pronounce, then, the final decision upon the 
whole : The question concerning the substance of the 
soul is absolutely unintelligible ; and, as the constant 
conjunction of objects constitutes the very essence of 
cause and effect, matter and motion may often be 
regarded as the causes of thought, as far as we have 
any notion of that relation. 

If any one should imagine that the foregoing argu- 
ments are any ways dangerous to religion, I hope the 
following apology will remove his apprehensions. 

* Part III. sec. xv. 



Sec. VI.] OF THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 169 

There is no foundation for any conclusion a priori, 
either concerning the operations, or duration, of any 
object of which it is possible for the human mind to 
form a conception. Any object may be imagined to 
become entirely inactive, or to be annihilated in a 
moment ; and it is an evident principle, that whatever 
we can imagine, is possible. Now this is no more true 
of matter than of spirit ; of an extended compounded 
substance than of a simple and unextended. In 
both cases the metaphysical arguments for the im- 
mortality of the soul are equally inconclusive ; and in 
both cases the moral arguments and those derived 
from the analogy of nature are equally strong and 
convincing. If my philosophy, therefore, makes no 
addition to the arguments for religion, I have at least 
the satisfaction to think it takes nothing from them, 
but that everything remains precisely as before. 



SECTION VI. 
Of personal identity. 

There are some philosophers who imagine we are 
every moment intimately conscious of what we call 
our Self ; that we feel its existence and its continu- 
ance in existence, and are certain, beyond the evi- 
dence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity 
and simplicity. 

For my part, when I enter most intimately into 
what I call myself, I always stumble on some partic- 
ular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or 



176 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part IV. 

shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can 
catch myself at any time without a perception, and 
never can observe anything but the perception. 
When my perceptions are removed for any time, as 
by sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, 
and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my 
perceptions removed by death, and could I neither 
think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the 
dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihi- 
lated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to 
make me a perfect nonentity. If any one, upon 
serious and unprejudiced reflection, thinks he has a 
different notion of himself, I must confess I can 
reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is 
that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we 
are essentially different in this particular. He may, 
perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, 
which he calls himself ; though I am certain there is 
no such principle in me. 

But, setting aside some metaphysicians of this 
kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, 
that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of 
different perceptions, which succeed each other with 
an inconceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual flux 
and movement. The mind is a kind of theatre, where 
several perceptions successively make their appear- 
ance, pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an 
infinite variety of postures and situations. There is 
properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in 
different ; whatever natural propension we may have 
to imagine that simplicity and identity. The com- 
parison of the theatre must not mislead us. They 



Sec. VI.] OF THE SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 171 

are the successive perceptions only, that constitute 
the mind ; nor have we the most distant notion of the 
place where these scenes are represented, or of the 
materials of which it is composed. 

What, then, gives us so great a propension to ascribe 
an identity to these successive perceptions, and to 
suppose ourselves possessed of an invariable and un- 
interrupted existence through the whole course of our 
lives ? 

We have a distinct idea of an object that remains 
invariable and uninterrupted through a supposed 
variation of time ; and this idea we call that of iden- 
tity or sameness. We have also a distinct idea of 
several different objects existing in succession, and 
connected together by a close relation ; and this to 
an accurate view affords as perfect a notion of diver- 
sity as if there was no manner of relation among the 
objects. But though these two ideas, of identity and 
a succession of related objects, be in themselves per- 
fectly distinct, and even contrary, yet it is certain 
that in our common way of thinking they are gen- 
erally confounded with each other. That action of 
the imagination by which we consider the uninter- 
rupted and invariable object, and that by which we 
reflect on the succession of related objects, are almost 
the same to the feeling, nor is there much more effort 
of thought required in the latter case than in the 
former. The relation facilitates the transition of the 
mind from one object to another, and renders its pas- 
sage as smooth as if it contemplated one continued 
object. This resemblance is the cause of the confu- 
sion and mistake, and makes us substitute the notion 



172 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUME. [Part IV. 

of identity, instead of that of related objects. How- 
ever at one instant we may consider the related suc- 
cession as variable or interrupted, we are sure the 
next to ascribe to it a perfect identity and regard it 
as invariable and uninterrupted. Our propensity to 
this mistake is so great from the resemblance above 
mentioned that we fall into it before we are aware ; 
and, though we incessantly correct ourselves by re- 
flection and return to a more accurate method of 
thinking, yet we cannot long sustain our philosophy, 
or take off this bias from the imagination. Our last 
resource is to yield to it and boldly assert that these 
different related objects are in effect the same, how- 
ever interrupted and variable. In order to justify to 
ourselves this absurdity, we often feign some new and 
unintelligible principle that connects the objects to- 
gether and prevents their interruption or variation. 
Thus we feign the continued existence of the percep- 
tions of our senses, to remove the interruption ; and 
run into the notion of a soul, and self, and substance, 
to disguise the variation. It evidently follows that 
identity is nothing really belonging to these different 
perceptions and uniting them together, but is merely 
a quality which we attribute to them because of the 
union of their ideas in the imagination when we re- 
flect upon them. 

What I have said concerning the first origin and 
uncertainty of our notion of identity, as applied to 
the human mind, may be extended with little or no 
variation to that of simplicity. An object whose dif- 
ferent co-existent parts are bound together by a close 
relation operates upon the imagination after much the 



Sec. VII.] of the sceptical philosophy. 173 

same manner as one perfectly simple and indivisible, 
and requires not a much greater stretch of thought in 
order to its conception. From this similarity of oper- 
ation we attribute a simplicity to it, and feign a prin- 
ciple of union as the support of this simplicity, and 
the centre of all the different parts and qualities of 
the object. 

SECTION VII. 

Conclusion of this book. 

I am first affrighted and confounded with that for- 
lorn solitude in which I am placed in my philosophy. 
When I look abroad, I foresee on every side dispute, 
contradiction, anger, calumny, and detraction. When 
I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and 
ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and 
contradict me ; though such is my weakness that I 
feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves 
when unsupported by the approbation of others. 
Every step I take is with hesitation, and every new 
reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in 
my reasoning. 

After the most accurate and exact of my reason- 
ings, I can give no reason why I should assent to it ; 
and feel nothing but a strong propensity to consider 
objects strongly in that view under which they appear 
to me. The memory, senses, and understanding are 
all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity 
of our ideas. Yet if we assent to every trivial sugges- 



1)4 Tll'E FHlLOSOPHV OF HtfME, [Part IV. 

tion of the fancy, beside that these suggestions are 
often contrary to each other, they lead us into such 
errors, absurdities, and obscurities that we must at last 
become ashamed of our credulity. 

But, on the other hand, if the consideration of these 
instances makes us take a resolution to reject all the 
trivial suggestions of the fancy, and adhere to the un- 
derstanding, that is, to the general and more estab- 
lished properties of the imagination ; even this reso- 
lution, if steadily executed, would be dangerous and 
attended with the most fatal consequences. For I 
have already shown * that the understanding, when it 
acts alone and according to its most general princi- 
ples, entirely subverts itself and leaves not the lowest 
degree of evidence in any proposition, either in phi- 
losophy or common life. 

Most fortunately it happens that since reason is 
incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself 
suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philo- 
sophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing 
this bent of mind or by some avocation and lively 
impression of my senses which obliterate all these 
chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I 
converse, and am merry with my friends ; and when, 
after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to 
these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, 
and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter 
into them any farther. 

* Sec. i., p. 145. 



INDEX. 



Analogy, 28, 109. 
Anthropomorphism, 31, 128. 
Association, 27, 28, 37, 48, 65, 

107, 131. 
Autobiography, 13. 

Belief, 27, 28, 29, 45, 90, 97, 
101-105, no, 146, 147, 159, 
163. 

Berkeley, 21 ff., 39, 72. 

Bibliography, I. 

Biography, 4, 13. 

Body, 33, 165. 

Cartesians, 35, 39, 117, 118. 
Causation, 20-32, 36-42, 66, 
69, 86-101, 109, 131 ff., 167. 
Causes, kinds of, 133. 
Certainty, 91. 
Chance, 107, 133. 
Clarke, 92. 
Coherence of impressions. 33, 

153- 
Confidence in reason, 46. 
Connection. See Necessary 

connection. 
Constancy, 33, 34, 153, 156. 
Constant conjunction, 98, 100, 

109, 124. 
Contiguity, 27, 29, 66, 86, 88, 

112, 125, 130. 
Continuity, 33, 148, 160. 
Contrariety, 69, 87. 

Demonstration, 32, 91, 99, 

143- 

Descartes, 35, 55. 
Determination. 37, 40, 112, 

125-131. 138. 
Difference, 70, 



Ding an sich, 38 
Distinction of reason, 76, 77. 

Efficacy, 113, 114, 116, 121, 

125, 129^ 
" Enquiry," The, 49 
Existence, external existence, 

2 5> 79. 83, 101, 148, 158, 

163. 
Experience, 21, 98. 
Exposition of Hume, 25. 
Extension, 79. See Space. 

Faith, 163. See Scepticism. 
Fancy. See Imagination. 
Force, 114, 116. 
Freedom. See Liberty. 

Green, T. H., 56. 

Habit, 4T, 75. 
Hobbes, 92. 
Huxley, 56. 

Ideas, 61, 123; abstract ideas, 

22, 30, 72 ff., 120; innate 

ideas, 29, 118. 
Identity, 68, 87, 154, 155, 1^7, 

169 ff. 
Imagination, 29, 32, 33. 34, 46, 

47, 65, 78, qg, 14S, 157, 162, 

169, 171, 173. 
Impressions, 61, 64, 96, 123, 

126. 
Immateriality, 35, 164. 
Independent existence, 33, 34, 

130, 148, 160. 
Inference, 26 ff., 31, 37, 47, 

90, 97 ff., 126, 131, 138. 
Infinite divisibility, 7S. 

175 



i 7 6 



INDEX. 



Influence of Hume, 54. 
Instinct, 161. 

Judgment. See Reasoning. 

Kant, 26, 44, 55, 56. 
Knowledge, 86, 106, 143. 

Liberty and Necessity, 138. 
Locke, 21, 30, 40, 55, 93, 114. 

Malebranche, 115. 
Materialism, 55, 164. 
Matter, 22, 117, 135, 165, 167. 

See Substance. 
Memory, 65, 96, 173. 
Mind, 34, 40, 45, 60, 158, 170. 

See Soul. 
Mode, 67, 70. 

Natural realism, 37, 44, 45. 

Natural relations. See Asso- 
ciation. 

Nature, 43, 130, 174. 

Necessity, necessary connec- 
tion, 29 ff., 36, 40, 55, 89, 
90, 91 ff., 99, 105, m-135, 
138, 141, 168. 

Number, 69, 87. 

Object, 34, 43, 45, 85, 155, 

I59,_ 162. 
Occasionalism, 39. 

Perception, 38; perceptions, 
34, 44,48, 62, 155, 159, 162, 
167, 170. 

Place. See Space. 

Possibility, 79, 169. 

Power, 113, 114, 121, 125, 
127. 129, 134. 

Principium individuationis, 

154- 
Piobability, 28, S6, 100, 105, 

106 ff., 143. 
Production, 89. 
Proofs, 106. 



Quality, 69, 87. 
Quantity, 69, 87. 

Reality, 25, 33, 42, 45, 48, 
101. 

Reason, reasoning, 29, 32, 33, 
34, 46, 99, 103, 143, 146, 
148, 162, 173. 

Reflection, 64. 

Reid, 55. 

Relations, 43, 67; philosophi- 
cal, 26, 68, 86, 101, 131. 

Resemblance, 27, 66, 68, S7, 
109, 125, 156. 

Rules for cause and effect, 42, 

' 135- 

Scepticism, 36, 46, 55, 143, 
146, 147, 163, 173. 

Science, 35, 59. 

Self, 35, 169. 

Sensation, 64. 

Senses, 147, 163, 173. 

Simple and complex percep- 
tions, 62. 

Simplicity of the mind, 172. 

Soul, 33, 34, 35, 164. See 
Mind. 

Sources of Hume's philoso- 
phy, 21. 

Space and time, 25, 69, 78, 80, 
87. 

Spinoza, 55. 

Substance, 22, 67, 70, 135, 
164 ff., 172. 

Succession, 29, 88, 112, 125, 
130, 157- 

"Treatise" and "Enquiry," 
49- 

Understanding. See Reason. 
Uniformity of nature, 29, 48, 

Unknowable, 38. 

Volition. See Will. 

Will, 30, 31, 42, 43, 119, 138. 



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